DIVERSIONS   OF   A   NATURALIST 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR       • 

SCIENCE  FROM  AN  EASY  CHAIR 

SCIENCE  FROM  AN  EASY  CHAIR.     SECOND  SERIES 

FROM  AN  EASY  CHAIR 

EXTINCT  ANIMALS 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN 


A    CORNER 


II'     HENRY 


A    MARINE    AQUARIUM,    PAINTED 

GOSSE,    F.  R.S. 

The  scene  shews  the  great  white  Sea  Anemone  of  Weymotith.     In  front  are  two 

richly  coloured  sea-worms  (Serpula)  issuing  from  their  calcareous   tubes,  attached 

to  a  dead  scallop's  shell.     The  green  sea-grass  fZostera)  and  a  translucent  pink 

sea-weed,  left  and  right,  complete  the  picture 


DIVERSIONS    OF    A 
NATURALIST 


BY 


SIR    RAY    LANKESTER 

K.C.B.,  F.R.S. 


WITH   A   FRONTISPIECE   IN  COLOUR  AND   FORTY-THREE 
OTHER   ILLUSTRATIONS 


METHUEN   &   GO.   LTD. 

36     ESSEX     STREET     W.C. 

LONDON 


• 

3 


First  Published  in  1915 


PREFACE 

AT  this  time  of  stress  and  anxiety  we  all,  however 
steadfast  in  giving  our  service  to  the  great  task  in 
which  our  country  is  engaged,  must,  from  time  to  time, 
seek  intervals  of  release  from  the  torrent  of  thoughts 
which  is  set  going  by  the  tremendous  fact  that  we  are 
fighting  for  our  existence.  To  very  many  relief  comes 
in  splendid  self-sacrificing  action,  in  the  joyful  exercise 
of  youthful  strength  and  vigour  for  a  noble  cause.  But 
even  these,  as  well  as  those  who  are  less  fortunate,  need 
intervals  of  diversion — brief  change  of  thought  and  mental 
occupation — after  which  they  may  return  to  their  great 
duties  rested  and  refreshed. 

I  know  that  there  are  many  who  find  a  never-failing 
source  of  happiness  in  acquaintance  with  things  belonging 
to  that  vast  area  of  Nature  which  is  beyond  and  apart 
from  human  misery,  an  area  unseen  and  unsuspected  by 
most  of  us  and  yet  teeming  with  things  of  exquisite 
beauty ;  an  area  capable  of  yielding  to  man  knowledge 
of  inestimable  value.  Many  are  apt  to  think  that 
the  value  of  "  Science "  is  to  be  measured  mainly,  if 
not  exclusively,  by  the  actual  power  which  it  has 


vi  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

conferred  on  man  —  mechanical  and  electrical  devices, 
explosives,  life-saving  control  over  disease.  They  would 
say  of  Science,  as  the  ignoble  proverb  tells  us  of  Honesty, 
that  it  is  "  the  best  policy."  But  Honesty  is  far  more 
than  that,  and  so  is  Science.  Science  has  revealed  to 
man  his  own  origin  and  history,  and  his  place  in  this 
world  of  un-ending  marvels  and  beauty.  It  has  given 
him  a  new  and  unassailable  outlook  on  all  things  both 
great  and  small.  Science  commends  itself  to  us  as  does 
Honesty  and  as  does  great  Art  and  all  fine  thought  and 
deed — not  as  a  policy  yielding  material  profits,  but 
because  it  satisfies  man's  soul. 

I  offer  these  chapters  to  the  reader  as  possibly  afford- 
ing to  him,  as  their  revision  has  to  me,  a  welcome 
escape,  when  health  demands  it,  from  the  immense  and 
inexorable  obsession  of  warfare.  The  several  chapters 
have  been  selected  from  articles  entitled  "  Science  from 
an  Easy  Chair"  written  in  recent  years  by  me  for  the 
"  Daily  Telegraph."  Under  that  title  I  have  already  pub- 
lished two  volumes  of  similar  selections.  I  have  chosen 
a  new  title,  "  Diversions  of  a  Naturalist,"  for  this  third 
volume  in  order  to  avoid  confusion  with  the  earlier  ones. 
Illustrative  drawings  have  been  introduced  into  several 
of  the  articles  and  a  few  alterations  made  in  the  text. 
But  they  remain  essentially  what  their  origin  implies — 
namely,  detached  essays  addressed  to  a  wide  public. 

I  wish  to  thank  my  friend  Dr.  Smith  Woodward  of 
the  Natural   History  Museum  for  the  figures   23,  25,  26, 


PREFACE  vii 

27,  28,  29,  and  30,  illustrating  Chapter  X,  and  also  to 
thank  Messrs.  Veitch  for  the  use  of  figures  33,  34,  35,  40, 
and  42.  I  have  copied  figures  4  to  8,  u,  19,  and  20 
from  the  drawings  made  by  Philip  Henry  Gosse,  F.R.S., 
and  published  by  him  in  that  wonderful  little  book  "  Marine 
Zoology,"  now  long  out  of  print.  I  have  also  borrowed 
my  frontispiece  from  the  book  on  "  The  Aquarium "  by 
that  great  naturalist  and  lover  of  the  seashore.  Many 
beautiful  coloured  plates  of  marine  animals  executed  by 
his  skilful  hand  are  to  be  found  in  that  and  other  works 
published  by  him. 

E.  R.  L. 

16  June  1915 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  ON  A  NORWEGIAN  FIORD  •                  i 

II.  NATURE-RESERVES        .  -13 

III.  FAR  FROM  THE  MADDING  CROWD  .                      .      23 

IV.  THE  GREAT  GREY  SEAL          .  •      32 
V.  THE  GROUSE  AND  OTHER  BIRDS  .           .     41 

VI.  THE  SAND  AND  PEBBLES  OF  THE  SEASHORE  .  48 

VII.  THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  A  SEABEACH  .  .  55 

VIII.  QUICKSANDS  AND  FIRE-STONES  .  64 

IX.  AMBER     ...                     .  -  TO 

X.  SEA-WORMS  AND  SEA-ANEMONES       .  .  77 

XI.  CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH        .  .  .88 

XII.  SHRIMPS,  CRABS,  AND  BARNACLES     .  .  98 

XIII.  BARNACLES  AND  OTHER  CRUSTACEANS          .  .  108 

XIV.  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  THE  GOOSE  117 
XV.  MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  THE  GOOSE  .  129 

XVI.  SEA-SHELLS  ON  THE  SEASHORE         .  ...    142 

ix 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XVII.  SAND-HOPPERS          .           .           .           .  .152 

XVIII.  A  Swiss  INTERLUDE            .           .           .  .160 

XIX.  SCIENCE  AND  DANCING       .           .           .  .170 

XX.  COURTSHIP    .           .           .                     .  .180 

XXI.  COURTSHIP  IN  ANIMALS  AND  MAN          .  .    189 

XXII.  COURTSHIP  AND  DISPLAY    ....     197 

XXIII.  COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON         .  .    205 

XXIV.  DADDY-LONG-LEGS  .....    216 
XXV.  THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE      .           .  .    226 

XXVI.  FROM  APE  TO  MAN            .           .           .  .236 

XXVII.  THE  SKELETON  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN  .  .    245 

XXVIII.  THE  BRAIN  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         .  .    253 

XXIX.  THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN          .  .    262 

XXX.  THE  MISSING  LINK.           .           .           .  .275 

XXXI.  THE'  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK        .           .  .292 

XXXII.  CHRISTMAS  TREES  AND  OTHER  PINE  TREES  .    302 

XXXIII.  THE  LYMPH  AND  THE  LYMPHATIC  SYSTEM  .    332 

XXXIV.  THE  BLOOD  AND  ITS  CIRCULATION         .  .    342 
XXXV.  FISH  AND  FAST  DAYS         .           .           .  .    351 

XXXVI.  SCIENCE  AND  THE  UNKNOWN       .          .  .361 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XXXVII.  DIVINATION  AND  PALMISTRY         .  .  .367 

XXXVIII.  TOADS  FOUND  LIVING  IN  STONE  .  .  .376 

XXXIX.  THE  DIVINING-ROD  .....    383 

XL.  BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY      .  .  .    396 

XLI.  HOW  TO   PROMOTE  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY  BY 

MONEY  ......    408 

INDEX  ......    417 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  WEYMOUTH  ANEMONE,  ACTINOLOBA  DIANTHUS,  AND 
THE  CONTORTED  TUBE-WORM  SERPULA  CONTOR- 
TUPLICATA  .....  Frontispiece 

FIG.  PAGE 

1.  A   PORTION    OF  THE   BRANCHING   TUBULAR   GROWTH 

FORMED  BY  R.HABDOPLEURA  NORMANI         .          .       5 

2.  ONE  OF  THE  POLYPS  OF  RHABDOPLEURA.  .  .       7 

3.  A  PIECE  OF  THE  WHITE  BRANCHING  CORAL  (LOPHO- 

HELIA  PROLIFERA)         .  .  .  .  •       9 

4.  BRITISH  MARINE  WORMS  OR  CH^ETOPODS          .  .      78 

5.  THE  SHELL  OF  THE  HEART-URCHIN  (SPATANGTJS  PUR- 

PUREUS)  WITH  ITS  SPINES  RUBBED  OFF        .  .      80 

6.  BRITISH  SEA-ANEMONES       .  .  .  .  .85 

7.  A  COMMON  BRITISH  JELLY-FISH     .  .  .  .94 

8.  A  COMMON  BRITISH  JELLY-FISH     .  .  .  .96 

9.  THE  LARVAL  OR  YOUNG  FORM  OF  CRUSTACEA  KNOWN 

AS  "THE  NAUPLIUS"     .....     105 

10.  THE  COMMON  SHIP'S  BARNACLE,  LEPAS  ANATIFERA      .    109 

11.  A  LARGE  BRITISH  SEA-ACORN,  BALANUS  PORCATUS       .    no 

12.  Two    STAGES    IN    THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    COMMON 

BARNACLE  FROM  THE  NAUPLIUS  STAGE       .          .112 

13.  THE  PICTURE  OF  THE  "  GOOSE  TREE,"  COPIED  FROM 

THE  FIRST  EDITION  OF  GERARD'S  "HERBAL?'       .      123 

xiii 


xiv  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

FIG.  .  PAGE 

14.  FANCIFUL  DESIGNS  BY  MYKEN^EAN  ARTISTS,  SHOWING 

CHANGE     OF     THE     CUTTLEFISH     (OCTOPUS     OR 

"  POULPE  ")  INTO  A  BULL'S  HEAD  AND  OTHER  SHAPES    131 

15.  THE  GOOSE  AND  THE  BARNACLE   .  .  .  .133 

16.  COPY  OF  A  SERIES  OF  MODIFIED  GEESE  PAINTED  ON 

AN  EARLY  MYKEN/EAN  POT,  FIGURED  BY  M.  PERROT     134 

17.  Two   DRAWINGS   ON    POTTERY   OF    MODIFIED    GEESE, 

FROM  PERROT'S  "OSSUAIRE  DE  CRETE"       .  .135 

1 8.  LEAVES   FROM  THE  TREE,  DRAWN  ON   A   MYKEN/EAN 

POT  .  .  .  .  .  .136 

19.  SOME  BRITISH  MARINE  BIVALVE  MOLLUSCS       .  .  144 

20.  THE  Two  COMMON  KINDS  OF  "SAND-HOPPER".  .  153 

21.  A  PHOSPHORESCENT  SHRIMP  (EUPHAUSIA  PELLUCIDA)  .  154 

22.  THE  CRANE-FLY  (DADDY-LONG-LEGS),  TIPULA  OLERACEA  217 

23.  COMPARISON  OF  THE  RIGHT  HALF  OF  THE  LOWER  JAW 

OF  A,  MODERN  EUROPEAN  ;  B,  EOANTHROPUS  FROM 
PlLTDOWN  J  AND  C,  CHIMPANZEE  .  .  .277 

24.  DIAGRAMS  OF  THE  LOWER  SURFACE  OF  THE  LOWER 

JAW  OF  A,  MAN  ;  B,  THE  EOANTHROPUS  OF  PILT- 
DOWN  (THE  LEFT  HALF  RE-CONSTRUCTED)  ;  AND  C, 
THE  CHIMPANZEE  .  .  .  .  .283 

25.  THE  PILTDOWN  JAW  AND  THE  HEIDELBERG  JAW          .    286 

26.  THE  CANINE  TOOTH  OF  THE  RIGHT  SIDE  OF  THE  LOWER 

JAW  OF  EOANTHROPUS  DAWSONI        .  .  .287 

27.  CANINE  TOOTH  OF  THE  RIGHT  SIDE  OF  THE  LOWER 

JAW  OF  A  EUROPEAN  CHILD,  MILK  DENTITION      .    287 

28.  THE  PILTDOWN  JAW  (EOANTHROPUS)       .          .  .288 

29.  COMPLETE  SKULL  AND  JAW  OF  EOANTHROPUS  DAWSONI    290 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xv 

FIG.  PAGE 

30.  THE     COMPLETE    SKULL     AND    JAW    OF     A    YOUNG 

CHIMPANZEE        ......    290 

31.  A    FERTILE    BRANCH     OF     THE    SCOTS    FIR,    PINUS 

SYLVESTRIS          .          .          .          .  •    3°5 

32.  THE  COMMON  YEW,  TAXUS  BACCATA        .  .  .310 

33.  A  THIN  SLICE  ACROSS  ONE  OF  THE  FOLIAGE  NEEDLES 

OF  THE  COMMON  SPRUCE         .  .  .  -314 

34.  A  THIN  SLICE  ACROSS  ONE  OF  THE  FOLIAGE  NEEDLES 

OF  THE  SILVER  FIR       .  .  .  .  .    315 

35.  THK    UPRIGHT    FEMALE    CONE    OF   THE  SILVER   FIR, 

| ABIES  PECTINATA  .  .  .  .  .316 

36.  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  FEMALE  CONE  OF  THE  SILVER  FIR    317 

37.  THE   FEMALE   CONK  OF  THE  COMMON  SPRUCE,  PICEA 

EXCELSA    .  .  .  .  .  .  .318 

38.  THE  FEMALE  CONE  AND  THE  FOLIAGE  OF  THE  COMMON 

LARCH,  LARIX  EUROPCEA          .  .  .  .319 

39.  FEMALE  CONE  OF  THE  PINASTER,  OR  MARITIME  PINE 

(PINUS  PINASTER)         .....      323 

40.  FEMALE  CONE  OF  THE  MONTEREY  PINE  OF  CALIFORNIA 

(PINUS  INSIGNIS)  .          .          .          .          -325 

41.  FEMALE  CONE  OF  PINUS  MURICATA          .  .  .    326 

42.  FEMALE  CONE  OF  THE  DOUGLAS  FIR  OF  NORTH-WEST 

AMERICA,  PSEUDOTSUGA  DOUGLASII   .  .  .327 

43   THE  FORE-ARM  OF  MAN,  WITH  THE  SKIN  REMOVED  so 

AS    TO    SHOW    THE    LARGE    SUPERFICIAL    LYMPHATIC 

VESSELS  RESTING  ON  THE  MUSCLES   .  .  .    334 


OH  !  how  light  and  lovely  the  air  is  upon  the  earth  ! 
How  beautiful  thou  art,  my  earth,  my  golden,  my 
emerald,  my  sapphire  earth  !  Who,  born  to  thy 
heritage  would  choose  to  die,  would  wish  to  close  his 
eyes  upon  thy  serene  beauties  and  upon  thy  magnificent 
spaces  ?— FEODOR  SOLOGUB. 


DIVERSIONS    OF    A 
NATURALIST 

CHAPTER    I 
ON  A  NORWEGIAN  FIORD 

THE  splendour  of  our  Sussex  Weald,  with  its  shady 
forests  and  lovely  gardens,  around  which  rise  the 
majestic  Downs  sweeping  in  long  graceful  curves  marked 
by  the  history  of  our  race,  has  charmed  me  during  these 
sunny  days  of  June.  The  orchids,  the  water-lilies,  the 
engaging  and  quaintly  named  "  petty  whin,"  and  the  pink 
rattle  are  joined  with  the  tall  foxgloves  and  elder-blossoms 
in  my  memory.  And  for  some  reason — perhaps  it  is  the 
heat — I  am  set  thinking  of  very  different  scenes — the 
great,  cool  fiords  of  Norway,  with  their  rocky  islets  and 
huge,  bare  mountain-tops,  where  many  years  ago  I  had 
the  "  time  of  my  life  "  in  exploring  with  the  naturalist's 
dredge  the  coral-grown  sea-bottom  1000  and  even  2000 
feet  in  a  straight  line  below  the  little  boat  in  which  I 
and  my  companion  and  three  Norwegian  boatmen  floated 
on  the  dark  purple  waves. 

To  let  a  dredge — an  oblong  iron  frame  some  three 
feet  long,  to  the  edges  of  which  a  bag  of  strong  netting 
is  laced,  whilst  the  frame  is  hung  to  a  rope  by  a  mystical 
triangle — sink  from  the  side  of  a  boat  and  scrape  the 


*  DIVERSIONS  -OF  A  NATURALIST 


surface  of  "the  bcea'rf-flobf  far  below  for  some  ten  or 
twenty  minutes,  and  then  to  haul  it  up  again  and  .see 
what  living  wonders  the  unseen  world  has  sent  you,  is, 
in  my  opinion,  the  most  exciting  and  delightful  sport  in 
which  a  naturalist  can  indulge.  There  are  difficulties  and 
drawbacks  connected  with  it.  You  cannot,  in  a  small 
boat  and  without  expenditure  of  large  sums  on  a  steam 
yacht  and  crew,  reach  from  our  coast — with  rare  excep- 
tions in  the  north-west — with  a  fair  prospect  of  returning 
in  safety,  those  waters  which  are  I  oo  fathoms  deep.  And 
it  is  precisely  in  such  depths  that  the  most  interesting 
"  hauls  "  are  to  be  expected.  I  had  had  in  former  days 
to  be  content  with  10  fathoms  in  the  North  Sea  and 
30  to  40  off  the  Channel  Islands. 

Then  there  is  the  question  of  sea-sickness.  Nothing  is 
so  favourable  to  that  diversion  as  slowly  towing  a  dredge. 
I  used  to  take  the  chance  of  being  ill,  and  often  suffered 
that  for  which  no  other  joy  than  the  hauling  in  of  a 
rich  dredgeful  of  rare  sea  creatures  could  possibly  com- 
pensate, or  induce  me  to  take  the  risk  (as  I  did  again 
and  again).  I  remember  lying  very  ill  on  the  deck  of  a 
slowly  lurching  "  lugger  "  in  a  heaving  sea  off  Guernsey, 
when  the  dredge  came  up,  and  as  its  contents  were  turned 
out  near  me,  a  semi-transparent,  oblong,  flattened  thing 
like  a  small  paper-knife  began  to  hop  about  on  the  boards. 
It  was  the  first  specimen  I  ever  saw  alive  of  the  "  lancelet  " 
(Amphioxus),  that  strange,  fish-like  little  creature,  the 
lowest  of  vertebrates.  I  recognized  him  and  immediately 
felt  restored  to  well-being,  seized  the  young  stranger,  and 
placed  him  in  a  special  glass  jar  of  clear  sea-water.  A 
few  years  later  the  fishermen  at  Naples  would  bring  me, 
without  any  trouble  to  myself,  twenty  or  more  any  day 
of  the  week  ("  cimbarella  "  they  called  them),  and  I  not 
only  have  helped  to  make  out  the  cimbarella's  anatomy, 


ON  A  NORWEGIAN  FIORD  3 

but  also  to  discover  the  history  of  the  extraordinary 
changes  it  undergoes  as  it  grows  from  the  egg.  I 
sent  my  pupil  Dr.  Willey,  now  professor  in  Montreal, 
one  summer  to  a  nearly  closed  sea-lake,  the  "  pantano  " 
of  Faro,  near  Messina,  where  the  lancelet  breeds.  He 
brought  home  hundreds  of  minute  young  in  various 
stages,  and  again  later  made  a  second  visit  to  that 
remote  sea-lake  in  order  to  complete  our  knowledge  of 
their  growth  and  structure  by  observation  on  the  spot. 

The  advantage  of  the  Norwegian  fiords  for  a 
naturalist  who  loves  to  "  dredge  "  is  that  at  many  parts 
of  the  coast  you  can  sail  into  water  of  200  fathoms 
depth  and  more,  within  three  minutes  from  the  rocky 
shore ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  great  passage  between 
the  islands  and  the  mainland  is,  to  a  very  large  extent, 
protected  from  those  movements  of  the  surface  which 
cause  such  torture  to  many  innocent  people  who  venture 
on  the  sea  in  boats!  Accordingly,  in  1882,  when  I 
heard  from  the  greatest  naturalist- dredger  of  his  day — 
the  Rev.  Canon  Norman,  of  Durham — that  he  knew  a 
farmhouse  at  Lervik,  on  the  island  of  Stordo,  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Hardanger  Fiord,  between  Bergen  and 
Stavanger — where  one  could  stay,  and  where  a  boat 
could  be  hired  for  a  couple  of  months — I  determined  to 
go  there.  I  was  confirmed  in  my  purpose  by  the  fact 
that  Canon  Norman  had  obtained  in  his  dredge,  at  a 
spot  near  Lervik,  which  he  marked  for  me  on  the  large- 
scale  official  map  of  the  region,  a  very  curious  little 
polyp-like  animal,  attached  to  and  branching  on  the 
stems  of  the  white  coral  which  one  dredges  there  at  the 
depth  of  150  fathoms.  The  little  animal  in  quest  of 
which  I  went,  though  other  wonderful  things  were  to  be 
expected  also,  had  been  dredged  originally  by  Dr. 
Norman  off  the  Shetland  Islands,  and  described  by 


4  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Professor  Allman,  of  Edinburgh.  But  they  had  not 
examined  it  in  the  living  state  with  the  microscope,  and 
though  they  showed  that  it  was  quite  unlike  other 
polyps,  yet  there  was  obvious  need  for  further  examina- 
tion of  it.  I  hoped  to  obtain  its  eggs  and  to  watch  its 
early  growth.  The  name  given  to  it  by  Allman  was 
"  Rhabdopleura,"  meaning  "  rod-walled,"  alluding  to  a 
rod-like  cord  which  runs  along  the  inside  of  the  delicate 
branching  tube  (only  the  one-twentieth  of  an  inch  wide), 
which  the  little  animal  constructs  and  inhabits. 

I  sent  a  chest  containing  glass  jars,  microscopes, 
books,  chemicals,  etc.,  and  my  dredge,  as  well  as  a  large 
windlass,  on  which  was  coiled  600  fathoms  of  rope,  by 
sea  to  Lervik,  .and  started  in  early  July,  with  my 
assistant,  Dr.  Bourne  (afterwards  Director  of  Education 
in  the  Madras  Presidency),  overland,  via  Copenhagen, 
for  Christiania.  Thence  we  drove  in  "  carioles  "  across 
Norway  to  Laerdalsoren,  on  the  west  coast,  making 
acquaintance  with  the  magnificent  waters — rivers,  lakes, 
and  cascades — of  that  pine-grown  land.  After  visiting 
the  Naerodal  and  the  glaciers  which  descend  from  the 
mountains  into  the  sea  on  the  Fjaerlands  Fiord,  we  took 
steamer  to  Lervik,  and  were  welcomed  at  our  farmhouse 
by  its  owner,  the  sister  of  the  member  of  Parliament  for 
the  surrounding  region  (about  four  times  the  area  of 
Yorkshire),  whose  son  secured  for  me  a  fair-sized  sailing 
boat,  and  with  two  other  men  of  Lervik  engaged  as  my 
crew  for  six  weeks. 

After  a  day  or  two  we  had  everything  in  order,  and 
at  seven  o'clock  one  morning  sailed  out  of  the  harbour 
to  make  our  first  cast  of  the  dredge.  The  mouth  of  the 
harbour  of  Lervik  is  40  fathoms  deep,  and  the  great 
north-bound  steamers  enter  it  and  come  alongside  the 


FIG.  i. — A  portion  of  the  branching  tubular  growth  formed  by  Rhabdopleura  Normani,  fixed  to 
and  spreading  over  the  smooth  surface  of  an  Ascidian,  dredged  at  Lervik  and  drawn  of 
three  times  the  natural  dimensions.  The  colourless  tubes  (b)  stand  up  freely  from  the  surface 
to  which  the  rest  of  the  growth  is  adherent,  and  from  each  of  them  issues  in  life  (as  seen  at 
bb)  a  polyp  such  as  that  shown  in  Fig.  2.  Each  polyp  is  continuous  with  the  dark  internal 
cord  (or  rod)  which  is  seen  traversing  the  whole  of  the  tubular  system,  a,  points  to  the 
main  and  oldest  portion  of  the  branching  stem  ;  c,  points  to  a  "  leading"  shoot  which  is  still 
adherent  and  will  give  rise  to  young  buds  right  and  left  which  will  form  upright  tubes  like  b. 
The  inset  d  represents  a  piece  of  th«  tube  magnified  so  as  to  show  the  rings  by  which  it  is 
built  up. 


6  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

rocks  on  which  the  village  stands.  Outside  the  harbour 
the  depth  increases  precipitously  to  200  fathoms.  We 
sailed  about  10  miles  along  the  fiord,  and  determined 
precisely  the  spot  indicated  by  Dr.  Norman  on  the  map, 
and  here  we  lowered  our  dredge.  We  had  fixed  around 
the  mouth  of  the  dredge  long  tassels  of  hemp  fibre,  since 
on  rocky  ground,  such  as  we  were  now  dredging,  one 
cannot  expect  much  to  be  "  scooped  up  "  by  the  slowly 
travelling  dredge  as  it  passes  over  the  bottom,  whilst  the 
threads  of  the  hemp,  on  the  contrary,  entangle  and  hold 
all  sorts  of  objects  with  which  they  come  into  contact. 
We  were  1000  feet  from  the  bottom,  and  our  dredge 
took  a  good  five  minutes  to  sink  as  we  paid  out  the  rope 
from  the  winch  in  the  stern  of  our  boat.  When  it 
reached  the  bottom  we  let  out  another  2000  feet  of  rope, 
and  then  very  slowly  towed  the  dredge  for  about  a 
quarter  of  an  hour.  Then  the  laborious  task  commenced 
of  winding  it  up  again,  two  men  turning  the  handles  of 
the  winch  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  At  last  the  dredge 
could  be  seen  through  the  clear  water,  and  soon  was  at 
the  surface  and  lifted  into  the  boat.  The  hempen 
tangles  were  crowded  with  masses  of  living  and  dead 
white  coral  (Fig.  3),  star-fishes,  worms,  and  bits  of  stone 
covered  with  brilliant-coloured  sponges,  Terebratulae  (a 
deep-water,  peculiar  shellfish,  the  lamp-shell),  and  other 
animals.  There  were  only  a  few  fragments  of  coral  in 
the  bag  of  the  dredge. 

We  filled  glass  jars  with  sea  water  and  placed  the 
bits  of  coral  in  them,  and  I  eagerly  examined  them  for 
the  creeper-like  "  Rhabdopleura."  There,  sure  enough, 
it  was  on  several  of  the  dead  stems  of  coral,  and  we 
sailed  back  to  Lervik  with  our  booty  in  order  to  examine 
it  at  leisure  with  the  microscope  whilst  still  fresh  and 
living.  In  our  temporary  laboratory  at  the  farmhouse 


ON  A  NORWEGIAN  FIORD 


FIG.  2. — One  of  the  polyps  of  Rhabdopleura  which  is  attached  by  its  soft 
contractile  stalk  (c)  to  the  dark  internal  cord  seen  in  Fig.  i.  A  similar 
polyp  issues  during  life  from  the  open  end  of  each  of  the  upright  tubes 
seen  in  Fig.  I,  and  is,  when  disturbed,  pulled  back  into  the  tube  by  the 
contraction  of  the  cord  c.  a,  mouth ;  b,  vent ;  c,  contractile  stalk  ; 
d,  head-shield  or  disk  ;  e,  the  left  gill-plane  ;  f,  the  body-mass  enclosing 
the  intestine,  etc.  (From  a  drawing  made  by  the  author  in  Lervik, 
Stordo,  in  1882.)  For  a  full  account  of  Rhabdopleura,  see  the  "  Quart. 
Journal  of  Microscopical  Science,"  vol.  xxiv.,  1884. 


8  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  little  polyp  which  it  had  been  my  chief  object  to 
study,  issued  slowly  from  its  delicate  tubes  when  placed 
in  a  shallow  trough  of  sea-water  beneath  the  microscope. 
I  was  able  on  that  day,  and  many  others  subsequently — 
with  renewed  supplies  from  the  depths  of  the  fiord — to 
make  coloured  drawings  of  it,  and  to  find  out  a  great  deal 
of  interest  to  zoologists  about  its  structure.  The  minute 
thing  (Fig.  2)  was  spotted  with  orange  and  black  like  a 
leopard,  and  had  a  plume  of  tentacles  on  each  side  of  its 
mouth,  which  was  overhung  by  a  mobile  disk — the  organ 
by  means  of  which  it  creeps  slowly  out  of  its  tube,  and 
also  by  which  the  transparent  rings  which  form  the  tube 
are  secreted  and  added  one  by  one  to  the  tube's  mouth, 
so  as  to  increase  its  length.  The  creature  within  the  tree- 
like branching  system  of  tubes  (Fig.  i)  is  also  tree-like  and 
branching,  fifty  or  more  polyp-like  individuals  terminating 
its  branches  and  issuing  each  from  one  of  the  upstanding 
terminal  branches  of  the  tube  system.  I  was  able  to 
determine  the  "  law  "  of  its  budding  and  branching,  and 
I  also  found  the  testis  full  of  spermatozoa  in  several  of 
the  polyps,  but  I  failed  to  find  eggs.  I  believe  that  we 
were  too  late  in  the  season  for  them  ;  and  they  are  still 
unknown. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  deep-sea  creatures  dis- 
covered by  the  "  Challenger  "  proved  to  be  closely  allied 
to  our  little  Rhabdopleura,  and  received  the  name 
"  Cephalodiscus."  Several  species  of  this  second  kind 
have  been  discovered  in  the  last  twenty  years  in  the 
deep  sea,  and  the  largest  and  most  remarkable  in  some 
respects  was  one  which  "  jumped  to  my  eyes  "  among 
the  booty  of  marine  dredgings  sent  home  from  the 
Antarctic  expedition  of  the  "  Discovery "  by  Captain 
Scott,  when  I  unpacked  the  cases  containing  these 
marine  treasures,  in  the  basement  of  the  Natural  History 


ON  A  NORWEGIAN  FIORD 


FIG.  3.—A  piece  of 
the  white  branch- 
ing coral  (Lopho- 
helia  prolifera) 
dredged  in  great 
quantity  by  the 
author  off  Lervik 
in  1882.  Drawn 
of  the  natural 
size. 


io  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Museum.  I  published  a  photograph  of  it  in  the  "  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Royal  Society,"  and  named  it  "  Cephalodiscus 
nigrescens."  But  nothing  more  of  importance  has,  as 
yet,  been  brought  to  light  as  to  "  Rhabdopleura." 

Our  rule  at  Lervik  was  to  go  out  dredging  from 
seven  to  twelve,  and  work  at  the  material  with  micro- 
scope and  pencil  for  some  three  or  four  hours  after  lunch. 
Of  all  the  many  beautiful  things  we  dredged,  the  most 
striking  were  the  various  kinds  of  corals,  the  large,  glass- 
like  shrimps,  the  strange  apple-green  worm  Hamingia 
(actually  known  previously  by  two  specimens  only), 
and  the  large,  disc-like  and  branched,  sand-covered  or 
sausage-like  Protozoa  (from  a  shelly  bottom  of  200 
fathoms  depth).  My  friend  Dr.  Norman  joined  me  at 
Lervik  after  I  had  been  there  for  a  month,  and  showed 
his  extraordinary  skill  in  choosing  the  most  favourable 
spots  for  sinking  the  dredge  and  in  pouncing  on 
interesting  specimens  as  we  sorted  the  contents  of  the 
dredge  (when  we  had  been  on  a  soft  bottom)  by 
passing  them  through  the  sieves,  specially  provided 
for  naturalists'  use,  as  we  gently  rocked  on  the  dark 
surface  of  the  clear,  deep  water,  many  miles  from  our 
island.  The  colours  and  light  of  that  region  are 
wonderful — the  mountains  of  a  yellow  tint,  far  paler 
than  the  purple  sea,  whilst  the  rocky  islands  are  fringed 
with  seaweed  of  rich  orange-brown  colour,  and  clothed 
with  grass  and  innumerable  flowers. 

The  white  coral  of  two  kinds  (Lophohelia  and 
Amphihelia)  is  accompanied  by  beautiful  purple  and 
salmon-coloured  softer  kinds  of  coral  (Alcyonarians), 
known  as  Primnoa,  and  by  the  gigantic  Paragorgia. 
On  one  occasion  our  dredge  became  fast.  For  long 
nothing  would  move  it,  and  we  feared  we  should  have 


ON  A  NORWEGIAN  FIORD  n 

to  cut  it  and  lose  some  300  fathoms  of  rope.  At  last 
the-  efforts  of  four  men  at  the  oars  set  it  free,  and  we 
wound  it  in.  As  the  dredge  came  up  we  found  en- 
tangled in  the  rope  an  enormous  tree-like  growth,  as 
thick  as  a  man's  arm,  seven  feet  long,  and  spreading 
out  into  branches,  the  whole  of  a  pale  vermilion  colour 
(like  pink  lacquer) — a  magnificent  sight !  It  was  a 
branch  of  the  great  tree-coral  of  these  waters — the  Para- 
gorgia — and  we  preserved  many  pieces  of  it  in  alcohol 
and  dried  the  rest.  But  the  gorgeous  colour  could  not 
be  retained. 

One  day  the  green  worm,  Hamingia  (named  after  a 
Norwegian  hero — Haming)  was  dredged  by  us  at  the 
mouth  of  Lervik  Harbour,  in  40  fathoms.  A  some- 
what similar  worm  lives  in  holes  in  the  limestone  rocks 
of  the  Mediterranean,  and  is  named  Bonellia  (after  the 
Italian  naturalist,  Bonelli).  All  the  specimens  of  this 
Mediterranean  worm,  which  is  as  large  as  a  big  walnut, 
and  has  a  trunk,  or  proboscis,  a  foot  long,  were  found  to 
be  females.  The  male  was  unknown  until  my  friend  the 
late  Alexander  Kowalewsky,  the  most  remarkable  of 
Russian  zoologists,  discovered  that  it  is  a  tiny  threadlike 
green  creature,  no  bigger  than  the  letter  "  i "  on  this 
page.  Three  or  four  are  found  crawling  about  on  the 
body  of  the  large  female.  I  found  the  same  diminutive 
kind  of  male  crawling  on  my  Norwegian  Hamingia,  at 
Lervik,  and  published  a  drawing  and  description  of 
him.  I  was  also  able  to  show  that,  unlike  Bonellia,  the 
Norwegian  worm  has  red  blood-corpuscles,  like  those  of 
a  frog,  and  impregnated  with  haemoglobin,  the  same 
oxygen-carrying  substance  which  colours  our  own  blood- 
corpuscles.  The  identity  of  the  worm's  haemoglobin 
with  that  in  our  own  blood  was  proved  by  its  causing 
two  dark  bands  of  absorption  in  the  solar  spectrum 


12 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


when  light  was  passed  through  it  and  then  through  the 
spectroscope — dark  bands  exactly  the  same  in  position 
and  intensity  as  those  caused  by  the  red  substance  of 
my  own  blood  and  changing  into  one  single  band  inter- 
mediate in  position  between  the  two — when  deprived  by 
an  appropriate  chemical  of  the  oxygen  loosely  combined 
with  it. 


On  the  Fiord  near  Lervik. 

Of  many  other  things  we  caught  and  many  other 
delights  of  that  long-past  summer  on  the  Norwegian 
fiords,  of  the  great  waterfalls,  the  vast  forests,  the 
delightful  swimming  in  the  sea,  the  trout-fishing,  and 
the  very  trying  food  approved  and  provided  for  us  by 
the  natives,  I  must  not  now  tell.  My  hope  is  that 
I  may  have  enabled  my  readers  to  understand  some  of 
the  enjoyment  open  to  the  marine  zoologist,  even  when 
he  dispenses  with  the  aid  of  a  big  steamship,  and 
modestly  pursues  his  quarry  in  a  sportsmanlike  spirit. 


CHAPTER    II 
NATURE-RESERVES 

ONE  of  the  new  features  of  modern  life — the  result 
of  the  enormous  development  of  the  newspaper 
press  and  the  vast  increase  in  numbers  of  those  who 
read  and  think  in  common — is  the  development  of  a 
sensitive  "  self-consciousness  "  of  the  community,  a  more 
or  less  successful  effort  to  know  its  own  history,  to  value 
the  records  of  the  past,  and  to  question  its  own  hitherto 
unconscious,  unreflecting  attitude  in  mechanically  and  as 
it  were  blindly  destroying  everything  which  gets  in  the 
way  of  that  industrial  and  commercial  activity  which  is 
regarded,  erroneously,  as  identical  with  "  progress." 
Beautiful  old  houses  and  strange  buildings — priceless 
records  of  the  ways  and  thought  of  our  early  ancestors 
— which  at  one  time  were  either  guarded  by  super- 
stitious reverence  or  let  alone  because  there  was  room 
for  them  and  for  everything  else  in  the  spacious  country- 
side— have  been  thoughtlessly  pulled  down  as  population 
and  grasping  enterprise  increased.  The  really  graceful 
old  houses  of  London  and  other  towns,  lovingly  produced 
by  former  men  who  were  true  artists,  have  been  broken 
up  and  their  panelling  and  chimney-pieces  sold  to  for- 
eigners in  order  to  make  way  for  more  commodious 
buildings,  hideous  in  their  ignorant  decoration,  or  brutally 
"  run  up,"  gaunt,  bare,  and  mis-shapen.  The  stones  of 
Avebury,  of  Stonehenge,  and  of  many  another  temple 


14  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

have  been  knocked  to  pieces  by  emancipated  country- 
folk— no  longer  restrained  either  by  superstition  or  by 
reverence — to  mend  roads  and  to  make  enclosures. 

Happily  the  new  self-consciousness  is  taking  note  of 
these  things.  That  strange  lumbering  body  which  we 
call  "  the  mother  of  parliaments  "  has  dimly  reflected  the 
better  thought  of  the  community,  and  given  a  feeble  sort 
of  protection  to  ancient  monuments.  The  newspapers 
have  lately  managed  to  excite  some  public  interest  in  a 
fine  old  house  in  Dean  Street,  Soho,  and  to  arouse  a 
feeling  of  shame  that  the  richest  city  in  the  richest 
Empire  of  the  world  should  allow  the  few  remnants  of 
beautiful  things  of  the  past  still  existing  in  its  midst  to 
be  destroyed  by  the  uncontrolled  operation  of  mercenary 
"  progress."  I  have,  in  common  with  many  others, 
visited  this  doomed  mansion.  It  is  a  charming  old 
place,  of  no  great  size  or  importance,  and,  with  its  well- 
proportioned  panelled  rooms  and  fine  staircase,  was 
destined  to  be  a  private  residence.  It  is  not  large 
enough  to  be  a  museum,  but  its  rooms  might  serve  for 
the  show  place  of  a  first-rate  maker  or  vender  of  things 
of  fine  workmanship.  There  ought  to  be  some  public 
authority — municipal  or  departmental — with  power  to 
acquire  such  interesting  houses  as  this,  not  necessarily 
to  convert  them  into  permanent  public  shows,  but  to 
keep  them  in  repair,  and  to  let  them  on  lease,  at  a 
reasonable  rent,  to  tenants,  subject  to  the  condition  of 
their  being  open  on  certain  days  in  the  year  to  artists 
and  others  provided  with  orders  of  admission  by  the 
authority.  In  other  countries  such  arrangements  are 
made ;  with  us  they  are  not  made  simply  because  we 
have  not  assigned  to  any  authority  the  duty  of  acting 
in  this  way*  for  the  public  benefit.  Our  public  authorities 
have  little  or  no  public  spirit,  and  resemble  private  com- 


NATURE-RESERVES  1 5 

mittees,  councils,  and  individuals  in  evading  and  refusing 
even  the  smallest  increase  of  responsibility  and  activity 
beyond  that  which  they  are  compelled  by  law  to  dis- 
charge. Unless  they  are  legally  compelled  to  interfere, 
all  records  of  art  and  nature  may  perish  before  they 
will  incur  the  inconvenience  of  moving  a  finger !  Con- 
sequently the  only  thing  to  be  done  is  to  assign  such 
duties  by  law  to  an  existing  authority,  or  to  one  created 
for  such  purposes. 

The  same  tale  of  destruction  and  irreparable  damage 
has  to  be  told  of  our  dealings  with  the  beauty  of  once 
unsullied  moorland,  meadow,  marsh,  forest,  river-bank, 
and  seashore.  But  the  destruction  has  here  been  more 
gradual,  less  obvious  on  account  of  remoteness,  and  more 
subtle  in  its  creeping,  insinuating  method,  like  that  of  a 
slowly-spreading  infective  disease.  The  word  "  country  " 
has  to  a  very  large  extent  ceased  to  signify  to  us  "  out- 
lying nature  beyond  the  man-made  town,"  occupied  only 
in  little  tracts  here  and  there  by  the  immemorial  tillers 
of  the  soil.  The  splendid  and  age-long  industry  of  our 
field-workers  has  made  much  of  our  land  a  garden.  Now 
they  themselves  are  disappearing  or  changed  beyond  re- 
cognition, losing  their  traditional  arts  and  crafts,  their 
distinctive  and  venerable  dialects,  and  their  individuality. 
The  land  is  enclosed,  drained,  manured ;  food  plants 
produced  by  the  agriculturist  replace  the  native  plants ; 
forests  are  cut  down  and  converted  into  parks  and 
pheasant-runs ;  foreign  trees  are  substituted  for  those 
native  to  the  soil.  Commons,  heaths,  and  wild  moor- 
lands have  been  enclosed  by  eager  land-grabbers,  the 
streams  are  polluted  by  mining  or  chemical  works,  or  if 
kept  clean  are  artificially  overstocked  with  hand-fed 
trout ;  whilst  the  open  roads  reek  of  tar  and  petroleum. 
The  "  wilderness  "  is  fast  disappearing,  and  it  is  by  this 


16  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

name  that  we  must  distinguish  from  the  mere  "  country," 
as  much  besmirched  and  devastated  by  man  as  are  the 
sites  of  his  towns  and  cities,  the  regions  where  untouched 
nature  still  survives  and  is  free  from  the  depredations  of 
humanity.  Many  beautiful  and  rare  plants  which  once 
inhabited  our  countryside  have  perished ;  many  larger 
animals  (such  as  wolf,  beaver,  red-deer,  marten-cats,  and 
wild-cats)  have  disappeared,  as  well  as  many  insects, 
great  and  small,  such  as  the  swallow-tailed  butterfly  and 
the  larger  copper  butterfly,  and  many  splendid  birds. 

Here  and  there  in  these  islands  are  to  be  found  bits 
of  "  wilderness  "  where  some  of  the  ancient  life — now  so 
rapidly  being  destroyed — still  flourishes.  There  are 
some  coast-side  marshes,  there  are  East  Anglian  fens, 
some  open  heath-land,  and  some  bits  of  forest  which  are 
yet  unspoilt,  unravaged  by  blighting,  reckless  humanity. 
It  is  a  distressing  fact  that  some  of  the  recent  official 
attempts  to  preserve  open  forest  land  and  commons  for 
the  public  enjoyment  have  been  accompanied  by  a 
mistaken  attempt  to  drain  them,  and  lay  them  out 
with  gravel  walks,  to  the  complete  destruction  of  their 
natural  beauty  and  interest.  The  bog  above  the  Leg 
of  Mutton  Pond,  on  Hampstead  Heath,  where  I  used 
to  visit,  years  ago,  the  bog-bean  and  the  sun-dew, 
and  many  a  moss-grown  pool  swarming  with  rare 
animalcules,  has  been  drained  by  an  over-zealous  board 
of  guardians,  animated  by  a  suburban  enthusiasm  for 
turf  and  gravel  paths.  The  same  spirit,  hostile  to  nature 
and  eager  to  reduce  the  wilderness  to  vulgar  convention- 
ality, has  tamed  the  finer  parts  of  Wimbledon  Common, 
and  is  busy  laying  down  gravel  paths  in  Epping  Forest. 
In  the  New  Forest  the  clamour  of  the  neighbouring 
residents  for  "  sport "  has  led  to  the  framing  of  regula- 
tions by  the  officials  of  the  Crown  (it  is  a  "  Royal " 


NATURE-RESERVES  1 7 

forest),  which  are  resulting  in  the  destruction  and  dis- 
appearance of  rare  birds  which  formerly  nested  there. 
Many  a  distant  common  threatened  by  the  builder  has 
been  preserved  as  an  open  space  by  golfers.  Such 
preservation  is  like  that  of  the  boards  of  conservators, 
useless  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  nature-lover.  The 
health-seeking  crowd  spreads  devastation  around  it.  The 
rare  sand-loving  plants  of  the  dunes,  and  the  "  bog- 
bean,"  the  "  sun-dew,"  and  other  refugees  from  human 
persecution  on  our  once  unfrequented  heath-lands,  are 
remorselessly  trodden  down  or  hacked  up  by  the  golfer. 
Other  destroyers  of  nature's  rarer  products  are  those 
who  greedily  search  for  them  and  carry  them  off,  root 
and  branch,  to  the  last  specimen,  in  order  to  sell  them. 
These  dealers  are  "  collectors,"  indeed,  but  must  not  be 
confused  with  the  genuine  "  naturalist,"  who  may  allow 
himself,  with  due  modesty,  to  secure  a  limited  sample  of 
treasures  from  nature's  open  hand. 

Under  these  circumstances  a  society  has  been  founded 
for  the  formation  of  "  nature-reserves "  in  the  British 
Islands.  Its  object  is  to  secure,  by  purchase  or  gift, 
tracts  of  as  yet  unsullied  wilderness — of  which  some  are 
still,  though  rarely,  to  be  found — where  beast  and  bird, 
insect  and  plant  are  still  living  as  of  old — untouched, 
unmolested,  undisturbed  by  intrusive,  murderous  man. 
The  society's  object  is  to  enter  into  relations  with  those 
who  may  know  of  such  tracts,  and  to  arrange  for  their 
transference — if  of  sufficient  interest — to  the  National 
Trust.  The  expense  of  proper  guardianship  and  the 
admission  to  the  reserve  of  duly  authorized  persons 
would  be  the  business  of  the  society.  Its  office  is  at  the 
Natural  History  Museum  in  Cromwell  Road,  and  Mr. 
Ogilvie  Grant,  the  naturalist  in  charge  of  the  ornitho- 
logical collections,  is  one  of  the  secretaries.  Sir  Edward 
2 


1 8  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Grey  and  Mr.  Lewis  Harcourt  and  several  of  our  most 
distinguished  botanists  and  zoologists  are  members  of 
the  council.  All  who  sympathize  with  the  objects  of 
the  society  should  write  to  the  secretary  for  further 
information. 

Already  two  tracts  of  land  were  secured  as  nature- 
reserves  before  the  society  came  into  existence.  One 
of  these  is  Wickham  Fen,  not  far  from  Cambridge, 
renowned  for  its  remarkable  plants  and  insects.  It  was 
purchased  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  National 
Trust  by  a  public-spirited  entomologist.  Another  re- 
serve, which  has  been  secured,  is  far  away  on  the  links 
or  dunes  of  the  north  coast  of  Norfolk,  and  is  of  especial 
interest  to  botanists.  No  one — either  golfer  or  bungalow- 
builder — can  now  interfere  there  and  destroy  the  inter- 
woven flora  and  fauna,  the  members  of  which  balance  and 
protect,  encourage  and  check  one  another,  as  is  Nature's 
method.  The  interaction  of  the  various  species  of  wild 
plants  in  this  undisturbed  spot  is  made  the  subject  of 
continual  and  careful  study  by  the  botanists  who  are 
permitted  to  frequent  it.  More  such  "  reserves  "  and  of 
different  characters  are  desirable.  Should  we,  of  the 
present  day,  succeed  in  securing  some  great  marsh-land, 
one  or  more  rocky  headlands  or  islands,  and  a  good 
sweep  of  Scotch  moor  and  mountain,  and  in  raising 
money  to  provide  guardians  for  these  acquisitions,  we 
shall  not  only  enjoy  them  ourselves  but  be  blessed  by 
future  generations  of  men  for  having  saved  something  of 
Britain's  ancient  nature,  when  all  else,  which  is  not  city, 
will  have  become  manure,  shooting  greens,  and  pleasure 
gardens. 

In  Germany  and  in  Switzerland  a  good  deal  has 
been  done  in  this  way.  Owing  to  the  existence  of 


NATURE-RESERVES  ig 

"  forestry  "  and  a  State  Forest  Department  in  Germany 
— which  has  no  representative  in  this  country — there  is 
machinery  for  selecting  and  guarding  such  "  reserves." 
A  large  sum  is  assigned  annually  by  the  Government 
to  this  purpose.  Last  year  an  international  congress, 
attended  by  delegates  from  the  English  society,  as  well 
as  by  representatives  of  many  other  States,  was  held,, 
and  much  useful  discussion  as  to  methods  and  results 
took  place. 

The  notion  of  creating  a  nature-reserve  on  a  small 
scale  seems  to  have  originated  with  Charles  Waterton, 
the  traveller  and  naturalist,  who  in  the  middle  of  last 
century  converted  the  estate  surrounding  his  residence 
near  Pontefract  in  Yorkshire  into  a  sort  of  sanctuary, 
where  he  made  it  a  strict  rule  that  no  wild  thing 
should  be  molested.  For  some  years  now  the  attempt 
to  create  "  nature-reserves,"  on  a  far  larger  scale  than 
those  of  which  I  have  been  writing,  has  been  made 
where  civilization  is  planting  its  first  settlements  in 
primeval  forest  and  prairie.  The  United  States  Govern- 
ment, impressed  with  the  rapid  destruction  and  dis- 
appearance both  of  forests  and  of  native  animals  which 
have  accompanied  the  opening  up  by  road  and  rail  of 
vast  territories  in  the  West,  created  in  1872  the  national 
"  reserve,"  called  the  Yellowstone  Park,  which  is  some 
3300  square  miles  in  area.  We  are  assured  that  here 
under  proper  guardianship  the  larger  native  animals  are 
increasing  in  number  ;  whilst  the  great  coniferous  trees, 
which  were  in  danger  of  extermination  by  the  white 
man,  are  safe.  Similar  reserves  have  been  proclaimed 
in  parts  of  Africa  under  British  control,  but  though  that 
known  as  Mount  Elgon — an  ancient  volcanic  cup,  clad 
with  forest,  and  ten  miles  in  diameter — seems  to  have 
been  effective,  and  to  have  furnished  in  Sir  Harry 


20  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Johnston's -time,  ten  years  ago,  a  refuge  for  the  giraffe, 
it  is  scarcely  possible,  at  present,  to  provide  an  efficient 
police  force  to  protect  areas  of  something  like  1000 
square  miles  against  the  depredations  of  native  and 
commercial  "  hunters  "  provided  with  modern  rifles. 

In  May,  1900,  I  was,  with  the  late  Sir  Clement 
Hill,  appointed  "  plenipotentiary  "  by  her  Majesty  Queen 
Victoria  to  meet  representatives  of  Germany,  France, 
Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  Congo  States  in  a  conference, 
presided  over  by  the  late  Marquis  of  Linlithgow,  at  the 
Foreign  Office.  The  conference  was  arranged  by  the  great 
African  powers  in  order  to  consider  and  report  on  the  means 
to  be  taken  to  preserve  the  big  game  animals  of  Africa  from 
extinction.  We  spent  an  extremely  interesting  fortnight, 
and  finally  agreed  upon  a  report,  the  upshot  of  which 
was  that  whilst  certain  animals,  such  as  the  giraffe,  some 
zebras  and  antelopes,  the  gorilla,  and  such  useful  birds 
as  the  vultures,  secretary  bird,  owls,  and  the  cow-pickers 
(Buphagus),  should  be  absolutely  protected,  others  should 
be  only  protected  at  certain  seasons,  or  in  youth,  or  in 
limited  numbers,  and  others  again  should  be  killed  with- 
out licence  or  restraint  at  any  time,  such  being  the  lion, 
the  leopard,  the  hunting-dog,  destructive  baboons,  most 
birds  of  prey,  crocodiles,  pythons,  and  poisonous  snakes. 
The  question  of  large  "  nature-reserves  "  was  discussed. 
It  was  agreed  that  such  reserves  should  be  maintained 
for  the  breeding-places  and  rearing  of  the  young  of 
desirable  animals,  and  that  the  destruction  of  predatory 
animals  or  an  excess  of  other  forms  should  be  permitted 
to  the  administrators  of  such  reserves.  Thus  it  is  clear 
that  no  absolute  "  nature-reserves "  were  considered 
possible. 

In  fact  this  is  the  case  whether  the  reserve  be  large 


NATURE-RESERVES  2 1 

or  small.  Once  man  is  present  in  the  neighbourhood, 
even  at  a  long  distance,  he  upsets  the  "balance  of 
Nature."  The  naturalist's  small  "  nature-reserve "  may 
be  ravaged  by  predatory  animals  driven  from  the  outly- 
ing region  occupied  by  man,  or  again,  the  absence  from 
the  "  reserve  "  of  predatory  animals  which  act  as  natural 
checks  on  the  increase  of  other  animals,  may  lead  to 
excessive  and  unhealthy  multiplication  of  the  latter. 
Man  must  "  weed  "  and  artificially  manage  his  "  reserve  " 
after  all !  Man  brings  also  into  the  neighbourhood  of 
reserves,  great  and  small,  disease  germs  in  his  domestic- 
ated animals,  which  are  carried  by  insects  into  the 
cherished  "  reserve,"  and  there  cause  destruction.  Con- 
versely, the  animals  maintained  in  a  reserve  carry  in 
their  blood  microscopic  parasites  to  the  poisons  of 
which  they  have  become  immune  by  natural  selection 
in  the  course  of  ages.  They  act  as  "  reservoirs "  of 
such  microscopic  germs.  These  germs  carried  by  flies 
or  other  insects  to  the  carefully  reared  cattle  imported 
by  civilized  man  from  other  regions  of  the  world  into  the 
neighbourhood  of  such  "  reserves,"  cause  deadly  disease 
(such  as  the  tsetse-fly  diseases  or  trypanosome  diseases) 
to  those  imported  cattle,  as  also  to  man  himself.  Whilst, 
then,  we  may  do  something  to  retain  small  tracts  of  our 
own  country  in  the  modified  state  which  it  attained  after 
the  earlier  inhabitants  had  destroyed  lion,  bear,  wolf,  and 
other  noxious  animals,  as  well  as  great  herbivora,  such  as 
giant  deer,  red  deer,  aurochs  (or  great  bull),  and  bison — 
yet  in  reality  a  true  "  Nature-reserve  "  is  not  compatible 
with  the  occupation  of  the  land,  within  some  hundreds  of 
miles  of  it,  by  civilized,  or  even  semi-civilized,  man. 

Nothing  but  the  isolation  given  by  a  wide  sea  or  high 
mountain  ranges  will  preserve  a  primeval  fauna  and  flora 
— the  indigenous  man-free  living  denizens  of  the  isolated 


22  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

region — from  destruction  by  the  necessary  unpremeditated 
disturbance  of  Nature's  balance  by  man  once  he  has 
passed  from  the  lowest  stage  of  savagery.  At  present 
we  are  faced  by  this  difficulty  in  Africa.  Not  only  the 
white  settlers  have  large  herds  of  cattle,  but  before  their 
arrival  the  native  races  had  imported  Indian  cattle. 
These  cattle  are  destroyed  by  "  fly  disease,"  the  germs 
(trypanosomes)  being  carried  by  the  tsetse  fly  to  the 
domesticated  cattle  from  wild  buffalo  which  swarm  with 
the  germs  but  are  uninjured  by  them.  Consequently,  if  the 
rich  pasture  lands  of  Africa — at  present  unutilized — are 
to  be  occupied  by  herdsmen,  the  wild  game,  buffalo  and 
antelopes,  must  be  destroyed.  In  many  regions  they 
have  been  destroyed.  Is  this  destruction  to  be  con- 
tinued ?  If  Africa  is  to  be  the  seat  of  a  modern  human 
population  and  supply  food  to  other  parts  of  the  world, 
the  whole  "  balance  of  Nature  "  there  must  be  upset  and 
the  big  wild  animals  destroyed.  There  is  no  alternative. 
The  practical  question  is,  "  How  far  is  it  possible  to 
mitigate  this  process  ?  "  Can  a  great  African  "  reserve  " 
of  100,000  square  miles  be  established  in  a  position  so 
isolated  that  it  shall  not  be  a  source  of  disease  and 
danger  to  the  herdsmen  and  agriculturists  of  adjacent 
territory  ? 


CHAPTER    III 
FAR   FROM   THE   MADDING   CROWD 

SOME  men  of  unbalanced  minds  have  lately  proposed 
deliberately  and  completely  to  obliterate  all  the 
artistic  work  of  past  generations  of  man  in  order,  as  they 
openly  profess,  that  they  themselves  and  their  own  pro- 
ductions may  obtain  consideration.  Even  were  they 
able  to  make  such  a  clearance,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  consideration  given  to  their  own  performances  would 
be  favourable.  These  obscure  individuals  have  immodestly 
dubbed  themselves  "  futurists/'  and  the  name  has  been 
at  once  adopted  as  a  mystification  and  advertisement 
by  a  variety  of  art-posers — probably  unknown  to  the 
originators  of  the  word — who  have  ventured  into  one  or 
other  of  the  fields  of  art  without  even  the  smallest  gift, 
either  of  conception  or  of  expression,  or  even  of  imitation. 
They  receive  undeserved  attention  from  a  section  of  the 
public  ready  to  dabble  in  every  newly-made  puddle.  I 
am  led  to  refer  to  them  because  the  abolition  of  the 
supremely  beautiful  things  slowly  evolved  by  Nature  in 
the  long  course  of  ages,  and  the  substitution  for  them  of 
man's  fancy  breeds  and  races  and  garden  paths,  is  not 
merely  a  parallel  piece  of  folly,  but  is  due  to  a  mental 
defect  identical  with  that  of  the  genuine  "  futurist," 
namely,  an  intellectual  incapacity  which  renders  its 
victim  insensible  to  the  charm  of  historical  and  evolu- 
tional complexity. 

23 


24  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

The  modern  man  who  nourishes  a  real  love  for  undis- 
torted  nature — that  is  to  say,  who  is  a  true  "  naturalist " 
— has  one  or  two  resources  even  in^hese  British  Islands. 
There  are  ways  of  access  to  Nature  unadorned  by  man 
which  are  open  even  to  the  town-dweller.  The  chief  of 
these  is  the  seashore.  Even  from  London,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  hours,  one  may  be  transported  to  territory  where 
there  are  no  traces  of  man's  operations.  The  region  of 
rock  and  pool,  sand-flat,  and  shell-bank,  exposed  by  the 
sea  as  it  retreats,  is  a  real  "  nature-reserve  " — effectually 
so  is  that  deepest  area  only  exposed  at  spring-tides.  The 
locality  chosen  by  the  naturalist  must  be  at  a  distance 
from  any  great  harbour  or  estuary  polluted  by  the  cities 
seated  on  its  banks,  and  should  also  be  out  of  the  way 
of  the  modern  steam-driven  fish  trawlers,  which  have 
caused  havoc  in  some  sweet  bays  of  our  southern  coast 
by  pouring  out  tons  of  dead,  unsaleable  fish.  The 
rejected  offal  has  become  the  gathering-ground  of  carniv- 
orous marine  creatures,  and  the  balance  of  Nature  has 
been  upset  by  the  nourishment  thus  thoughtlessly  thrown 
by  man  into  new  relations. 

Some  favoured  spot  on  the  south  or  west  coast  may 
be  known  to  our  city-dwelling  nature-lover,  and  thither 
he  will  hasten  to  spend  week-ends,  and,  when  he  can, 
longer  spells  in  the  supreme  delight  of  undisturbed  com- 
munion with  the  things  of  Nature,  apart  from  human 
"  enterprise."  In  some  cottage  near  the  sea  marsh, 
where  an  unpolluted  stream  joins  the  salt  water,  he  has 
his  accustomed  lodging ;  his  host,  a  cheery  long-shore 
fisherman  and  handy  boatman.  Close  by  is  the  rising 
headland  and  rocky  cliff  facing  the  sea.  The  shore  is 
strewn  with  rocks,  and  as  the  tide  goes  down  long 
"  reefs  "  are  exposed,  clothed  with  brown  and  green  sea- 
weeds. Here  no  man  has  intruded  !  When  the  water 


FAR  FROM  THE  MADDING  CROWD          25 

recedes  still  farther,  pools  and  miniature  caverns  appear, 
edged  with  delicate  feathery  red-coloured  seaweeds. 
Many  small  fishes,  shrimps  of  various  kinds,  some- 
times pale  rainbow-tinted  "  squids "  (one  of  the  more 
delicate  cuttle-fishes),  are  seen  darting  about  the  pools, 
changing  their  colour  with  lightning  rapidity.  The 
overhanging  sides  of  the  rock-pools  give  protection  to 
gorgeously-coloured  "  sea-anemones "  adhering  to  them. 
Here,  also,  are  those  exquisite  ascidians — ill-described 
by  the  rough  name  "  sea-squirt " — hanging  from  the 
rocks  like  drops  of  purest  crystal  in  their  transparency 
— for  which  naturalists  use  the  prettier  title  "  Clavellina." 
The  nature-lover  now  turns  one  of  the  large  flat  slabs  of 
rock  lying  in  such  a  pool — well  knowing  what  loveliness 
its  under-side  will  reveal  to  his  eyes.  That  under-side 
is  studded  with  a  dozen  or  two  of  the  most  exquisite 
gems  of  green  and  peach  colour,  ruby  and  yellow 
(Corynactis  by  name !),  which,  if  the  slab  of  stone  is  left 
beneath  the  water,  expand  and  display  each  its  circlet 
of  brilliant  little  tentacles.  They  are  sea-anemones  no 
bigger  than  the  precious  stone  in  a  signet-ring.  Among 
them  a  bright  salmon-coloured  worm  hastens  with  ser- 
pentine movement  and  the  rippling  strokes  of  a  hundred 
feathery  feet  to  escape  from  the  unaccustomed  light.  A 
deep  blood-red  coloured  prawn  (Alpheus)  darts  from 
concealment  and  hastily  buries  itself  in  the  sandy  bottom 
of  the  pool,  snapping  its  pincerlike  claw  with  a  sharp 
cracking  sound.  A  couple  of  bivalved  shells  (Lima 
hians)  which  were  concealed  beneath  the  slab  swim  lazily 
round  the  pool  by  opening  and  closing  their  delicate 
white  "  valves " — an  unusual  kind  of  activity  in  such 
mussels,  oysters,  and  clams — whilst  a  fringe  of  long 
orange-red  tentacles  trails  in  the  water  from  each  of  them. 
The  lifting  of  another  rock  may  dislodge  an  "  octopus  " — 
or  a  huge  brilliantly-coloured  star-fish — or  one  of  the 


26  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

rarer  kinds  of  crab  eager  to  avoid  the  observation  of  the 
octopus,  of  which  it  is  the  regular  food.  A  spade  pushed 
into  the  neighbouring  sandbanks  reveals  heart-urchins, 
gorgeous  sea- worms,  and  burrowing  shell-fish  and  perhaps 
sand-eels.  The  human  visitor — bending  over  these 
scenes  of  wonderment  and  perhaps  venturing  to  transfer 
one  or  two  only  of  the  less  familiar  animals  to  a  glass 
jar  filled  with  sea-water  so  that  he  may  see  them  more 
clearly — at  last  stands  up  and  straightens  his  back,  gazing 
over  the  sun-bathed  scene  from  the  tumbled  weed-grown 
rocks,  encrusted  with  crowds  of  purple-blue  mussels,  to 
the  patches  of  golden  sand,  clear  pools,  and  the  blue 
sea  beyond.  Then  he  may  note  (as  I  have)  a  curious 
rhythmical  sound  if  he  is  among  rocks  covered  with  sea- 
weeds— a  quiet  but  incessant  "  hiss-hiss,"  which  is  heard 
above  the  deeper-toned  lapping  of  the  little  waves  among 
the  big  stones.  This  is  the  sound  made  by  the  rasp-like 
tongues  of  the  periwinkles  feeding  on  the  abundant  weed, 
over  which  they  crawl,  leaving  the  water  and  "  browsing  " 
on  the  surface  exposed  to  the  air  by  the  fall  of  the  tide. 
The  browsing  sound  of  these  little  snails  is  to  the  sea- 
shore what  the  humming  of  bees  is  to  inland  meadows. 

Day  after  day  and  at  various  seasons  of  the  year  the 
nature-lover  will  visit  this  sanctuary,  and,  whilst  con- 
templating the  lovely  forms,  colour,  and  movement  of 
its  denizens,  will  learn  the  secrets  of  their  life,  of  their 
comings  and  goings,  and  the  mysteries  of  their  re- 
production, their  birth,  and  their  childhood.  Each  day 
he  finds  something  unknown  to  his  brother  naturalists. 
He  will  examine  it  with  his  lens,  paint  it  in  all  its 
beauty,  and  tell  of  it  in  due  course  in  printed  page  and 
coloured  portraiture ;  but  he  is  no  mere  seeker  for 
novelty,  nor  is  the  credit  of  discovery  the  motive  of  his 
devotion.  Beyond  and  greater  than  any  such  gains 


FAR  FROM  THE  MADDING  CROWD          27 

are  the  incomparable  delight,  the  never-failing  happiness 
which  personal  intimacy  with  the  secret  things  of  natural 
beauty  bring  to  him. 

He  has  yet  another  chance  of  such  enjoyment,  if 
he  be  a  microscopist,  and  familiar  with  the  inhabitants 
of  fresh-water  ponds.  A  pond  is,  in  many  cases,  an 
oasis  in  the  waste  of  civilization,  a  miniature  nature- 
reserve,  rarely,  if  ever,  affected  by  human  proceedings 
until  haply  it  is  abolished  altogether.  A  fairly  deep, 
stagnant  pond  under  trees  in  some  secluded  park  is  one 
of  the  most  favourable  kind,  but  all  sorts  deserve  inquiry 
(even  the  rain  pools  on  the  roofs  of  old  houses  in  Paris 
have  rewarded  the  faithful  seeker),  and  may  prove,  for  a 
time  at  least,  havens  of  refuge  for  a  wonderful  assem- 
blage of  animalcules  and  minute  microscopic  plants, 
which  for  the  most  part  perish  as  did  the  bison  of  the 
American  plains  by  the  mere  disturbance  caused  by  the 
propinquity  of  civilized  man.  I  knew  such  a  pond — it 
is  now  built  over — near  Hampstead.  As  one  lay  on 
the  bank  and  peered  into  the  depths  of  the  pond  the 
transparent,  glass-like  larvae  of  the  "plume  fly" 
(Corethra)  could  be  seen  swimming  in  the  clear  water, 
driving  before  it  troops  of  minute  pink-coloured  water- 
fleas  (Daphnia)  and  other  crustaceans. 

In  other  parts  the  water  was  made  bluish-green  by 
crowds  of  the  little  floating  spherical  animalcules  called 
"  Volvox  globator."  The  mud  contained  many  curious 
worms  allied  to  the  earth-worm,  whilst  coiled  round 
fallen  twigs  were  the  small  snake-like  worms  known  as 
"  Nais  serpentina."  Desmids,  Diatoms,  and  animalcules  of 
endless  variety  abounded.  A  muslin  net  set  on  a  ring 
on  the  end  of  a  stick  enabled  one  to  procure  samples  of 
the  floating  life  of  the  water  and  also  to  skim  the 


28  DIVERSIONS  OF  A   NATURALIST 

surface  of  the  mud,  and  these  spoils  were  brought  home 
in  bottles  and  searched  for  hours  drop  by  drop  with  the 
microscope.  The  world  of  active,  graceful,  bustling  life 
thus  revealed  as  one  gazes  for  hours  through  the  magic 
tube  of  the  microscope,  is  as  remote  from  human  civiliz- 
ation as  that  uncovered  at  low  tide  on  the  seashore. 
Many  a  worried  City  man,  amongst  them  a  great  political 
writer  on  the  staff  of  a  London  daily,  now  passed  from 
among  us,  has  found  in  this  microscopic  world — so 
readily  accessible  even  at  his  own  study  table — a  release 
from  care,  a  refreshing  contact  with  unadulterated 
natural  things  of  life  and  beauty.  My  friend,  Iwan 
Miiller,  the  writer  referred  to,  was  as  discriminating  a 
judge  of  the  shapes  of  wheel-animalcules  as  he  was  of 
the  faces  of  the  politicians  of  Europe  and  South  Africa ! 

There  is  another  and  much  more  difficult  escape 
from  the  grip  and  taint  of  civilization,  which  is  that 
effected  by  the  explorer  who  penetrates  into  sparsely 
inhabited  wilds  such  as  those  of  the  Australian  con- 
tinent. Man  is  there,  but  in  such  small  number  (one  to 
every  450  square  miles!),  and  in  so  primitive  and  child- 
like a  state,  that  he  is  not  a  disturbing  element,  but 
simply  one  of  the  "fauna" — one  of  the  curious  animals 
living  there  under  the  domination  of  Nature — not  yet 
"  Nature's  rebel,"  but  submissive,  unconscious,  and  a 
more  fascinating  study  for  us  than  any  other  of  her 
products.  He  shows  us  what  manner  of  men  were  our 
own  remote  ancestors.  The  hunters  who  have  left  their 
flint  implements  in  the  earlier  river  gravels  of  Western 
Europe  were  such  men  as  these  Australian  natives  now 
are.  Naked,  using  only  sticks  and  chipped  stones  as 
implements  and  weapons,  destitute  of  crops  or  herds  or 
habitations,  wandering  from  place  to  place  in  keen 
search  of  food — small  animals,  birds,  lizards,  and  grubs 


FAR  FROM  THE  MADDING  CROWD          29 

— these  Australians  have  none  of  the  arts  of  the  most 
primitive  among  other  races,  excepting  that  they  can 
make  fire  and  construct  a  canoe  of  the  bark  of  trees. 
They  have  not  even  the  bow  and  arrow,  but  make  use 
of  spears  and  the  wonderful  "  boomerang "  in  hunting 
and  fighting.  They  daub  themselves  with  a  sort  of 
white  paint,  and  decorate  their  bodies  with  great  scars 
made  by  cutting  gashes  in  the  flesh  with  sharp  stones, 
and  they  dress  their  heads  and  faces  and  ceremonial 
wands  with  wool  and  feathers,  which  they  fix  by  the 
aid  of  an  adhesive  fluid  always  ready  to  hand — namely, 
their  own  blood.  I  recently  was  present  at  a  lecture 
given  to  the  Anthropological  Institute  in  London  by 
Professor  Baldwin  Spencer,  of  Melbourne,  with  whom  I 
was  closely  associated  when  he  was  a  student  at  Oxford 
thirty  years  ago.  He  has  devoted  many  years  to  the 
study  of  the  Australian  natives,  and  ten  years  ago 
published  a  most  valuable  work  describing  his  experiences 
amongst  them,  to  which  he  has  recently  added  a  further 
volume.  He  has  lived  with  them  in  friendship  and 
intimacy  in  the  remote  wilderness  of  the  Australian 
bush,  and  has  been  admitted  as  a  member  of  one  of 
their  mysterious  clans,  of  which  the  "  totem,"  or  supposed 
spirit-ancestor,  is  "  the  witchety  grub  " — a  kind  of  cater- 
pillar. He  has  been  freely  admitted  to  their  secret 
ceremonies  as  well  as  to  their  more  public  "  corro- 
borees "  or  dances,  and  has  been  able  (as  no  one  else 
has  been),  without  annoyance  or  offence  to  them,  to  take 
a  great  number  of  cinema-films  of  them  in  their  various 
dances  or  when  cooking  in  camp  or  paddling  and  up- 
setting their  canoes,  and  climbing  back  again  from  the 
river.  Many  of  these  he  exhibited  to  us,  and  we  found 
ourselves  among  moving  crowds  of  these  slim-legged, 
beautifully-shaped  wild  men.  The  film  presented  some 
of  their  strange  elaborate  dances,  which  soon  will  be 


30  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

danced  no  more.  These  wild  men  die  out  when  civilized 
man  comes  near  them.  It  appears  that  they  really  spend 
most  of  their  time  in  dancing  when  not  looking  for  food 
or  chipping  stone  implements,  and  that  their  dances  are 
essentially  plays  (like  those  of  little  children  in  Europe), 
the  acting  of  traditional  stories  relating  the  history  of 
their  venerated  animal  "  totem,"  which  often  last  for 
three  weeks  at  a  time !  Whilst  dancing  and  gesticu- 
lating they  are  chanting  and  singing  without  cessation, 
often  repeating  the  same  words  over  and  over  again. 
Here,  indeed,  we  have  the  primitive  human  art,  the 
emotional  expression  from  which,  in  more  advanced 
races,  music,  drama,  dancing,  and  decorative  handicraft 
have  developed  as  separate  "  arts." 

The  most  remarkable  and  impressive  result  was 
obtained  when  Professor  Baldwin  Spencer  turned  on 
his  phonograph  records  whilst  the  wild  men  danced 
in  the  film  picture.  Then  we  heard  the  actual  voices  of 
these  survivors  of  prehistoric  days — shouting  at  us  in 
weird  cadences,  imitating  the  cry  of  birds,  and  accom- 
panied by  the  booming  of  the  bull-roarer  (a  piece  of 
wood  attached  to  a  string,  and  swung  rapidly  round  by 
the  performer).  A  defect,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
special  merit,  of  the  cinema  show  of  the  .present  day  is 
the  deadly  silence  of  both  the  performers  and  the 
spectators.  Screams  and  oaths  are  delivered  in  silence  ; 
pistols  are  fired  without  a  sound.  One  can  concentrate 
one's  observation  on  the  facial  expression  and  move- 
ments of  the  actors  with  undivided  attention  and  with 
no  fear  of  startling  detonations.  And  very  bad  they 
almost  invariably  are,  except  in  films  made  by  the  great 
French  producers.  On  the  other  hand,  I  was  astonished 
at  the  intensity  of  the  impression  produced  by  hearing 
the  actual  voices  of  those  Australian  wild  men  as  they 


FAR  FROM  THE  MADDING  CROWD          31 

danced  in  rhythm  with  their  songs.  To  hear  is  a 
greater  means  of  revelation  than  to  see.  One  feels 
even  closer  to  those  Australian  natives  as  their  strange 
words  and  songs  issue  from  imprisonment  in  the  phono- 
graph, than  when  one  sees  them  in  the  film  pictures 
actually  beating  time  with  feet  and  hands  and  imitating 
the  movements  of  animals.  To  receive,  as  one  sits  in  a 
London  lecture-room,  the  veritable  appeal  of  these  remote 
and  inaccessible  things  to  both  the  eye  and  the  ear 
simultaneously,  is  indeed  the  most  thrilling  experience  I 
can  remember.  With  a  feeling  of  awe,  almost  of  terror, 
we  recognize  as  we  gaze  at  and  listen  to  the  records 
brought  home  by  Professor  Baldwin  Spencer  that  we 
are  intruding  into  a  vast  and  primitive  Nature-reserve 
where  even  humanity  itself  is  still  in  the  state  of  child- 
hood— submissive  to  the  great  mother,  without  the 
desire  to  destroy  her  control  or  the  power  to  substitute 
man's  handiwork  for  hers. 


CHAPTER    IV 
THE   GREAT   GREY   SEAL 

IT  is  always  pleasing  to  find  that  intelligent  care  can 
be  brought  to  bear  on  the  preservation  of  the  rare 
and  interesting  animals  which  still  inhabit  parts  of  these 
British  Islands,  though  it  is  not  often  that  such  care  is 
actually  exercised.  Mr.  Lyell  (a  nephew  of  the  great 
geologist  Sir  Charles  Lyell)  in  April  1914  introduced 
a  Bill  into  the  House  of  Commons  which  is  called  the 
Grey  Seals  (Protection)  Bill.  It  came  on  for  considera- 
tion before  the  Standing  Committee,  was  ordered  to  be 
reported  to  the  House  without  amendment,  and  has 
now  passed  into  law. 

The  Great  Grey  Seal  is  a  much  bigger  animal  than 
the  Common  Seal,  the  two  species  being  the  only  seals 
which  can  be  properly  called  "  British "  at  the  present 
day,  though  occasionally  the  Harp  Seal,  or  Greenland 
Seal,  and  the  Bladder-nosed  Seal  are  seen  in  British 
waters,  and  may  emerge  from  those  waters  on  to  rocky 
shores  or  lonely  sandbanks.  The  Great  Grey  Seal  is 
called  "  Halichcerus  grypus "  by  zoologists,  whilst  the 
Common  Seal  is  known  as  "  Phoca  vitulina."  The  male 
of  the  former  species  grows  to  be  as  much  as  10  feet 
in  length,  whilst  that  of  the  Common  Seal  rarely  attains 
5  feet.  Both  these  seals  breed  on  the  British  coast.  The 
Common  Seal  frequents  the  north  circumpolar  region, 


THE  GREAT  GREY  SEAL  33 

being  found  on  the  northern  coasts  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic,  and  also  on  both  sides  of  the 
Pacific,  and  even  makes  its  way  down  the  coasts  of 
France  and  Spain  into  the  Mediterranean,  where  it 
is  rare.  A  few  years  ago  one  appeared  on  the  beach 
at  Brighton  !  It  may  often  be  seen  on  the  west  coast 
of  Scotland,  of  Ireland,  Wales,  and  Cornwall,  where  it 
breeds  in  caves.  Its  hairy  coat  is  silky,  and  has  a 
yellowish-grey  tint  spotted  with  black  and  dark  grey, 
most  abundantly  on  the  back. 

The  Great  Grey  Seal  does  not  occur  in  the  Pacific, 
but  is  limited  to  the  northern  shores  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic.  Its  coat  is  of  a  more  uniform  greyish- 
brown  colour  than  that  of  the  Common  Seal,  and  when 
dried  by  exposure  to  the  sun  has  a  silvery-grey  sheen. 
The  Great  Grey  Seal  is  a  good  deal  rarer  on  our  coasts 
than  is  the  Common  Seal.  It  is  now  limited  to  the 
south,  west,  and  north  coasts  of  Ireland,  to  the  great 
islands  on  the  West  of  Scotland,  the  Orkneys,  the  Shet- 
lands,  and  some  spots  on  the  east  coast  of  Scotland. 
It  is  heard  of  as  a  rare  visitor  to  the  Lincolnshire 
"Wash,"  the  coasts  of  Norfolk,  Cornwall,  and  Wales. 
Some  years  ago  (in  1883)  I  found  a  newly-born  Grey 
Seal  on  the  shore  of  Pentargon  Cove,  near  Boscastle, 
North  Cornwall.  It  appears  that  whilst  (contrary  to 
the  statements  of  some  writers)  the  Common  Seal 
produces  its  young  most  usually  in  caves  or  rock- 
shelters,  the  Great  Grey  Seal  chooses  a  remote  sand 
island  or  deserted  piece  of  open  shore  for  its  nursery. 
The  Common  Seal  gives  birth  to  its  young — a  single 
one  or  a  pair — in  June ;  the  Great  Grey  Seal  about  the 
ist  of  September.  While  the  young  in  both  species  is 
clothed  when  born  in  a  coat  of  long  yellowish-white 
hair,  this  coat  is  shed  in  the  case  of  the  Common  Seal 


34  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

within  twenty-four  hours  of  birth,  exposing  the  short 
hair,  forming  a  smooth,  silky  coat,  as  in  the  adult,  and 
the  young  at  once  takes  to  the  water  and  swims.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  long  yellowish-white  coat  of  hair 
persists  in  the  young  of  the  Great  Grey  Seal  for  six  or 
seven  weeks,  during  which  time  it  remains  on  shore,  and 
refuses  to  enter  the  water.  It  is  visited  at  sundown  by 
the  mother  for  the  purpose  of  suckling  it.  According 
to  Mr.  Lyell,  this  renders  the  young  of  the  Great  Grey 
Seal  peculiarly  liable  to  attack  by  reckless  destructive 
humanity,  and  he  accordingly  proposes  legislation  to 
render  it  a  penal  offence  to  destroy  the  young  seals  or 
the  mothers  during  the  nursing  season.  It  is  estimated 
that  the  total  number  of  Great  Grey  Seals  in  Scottish 
waters  has  been  reduced  to  less  than  500,  and  that  in 
English  and  Irish  waters  the  total  is  even  less. 

It  has  often  been  desired  by  naturalists  that  a  check 
should  be  put  by  the  Legislature  upon  the  wanton 
destruction  of  the  common  seal,  as  well  as  of  the 
grey  seal.  It  is  certainly  a  regrettable  result  of  the 
increased  visitation  of  our  remote  rocky  shores  by 
holiday-makers,  so-called  "  sportsmen "  and  thoughtless 
ruffians  of  all  kinds,  that  the  large,  and  perfectly 
harmless,  grey  seal  is  likely  to  be  exterminated.  In 
former  times  in  these  islands,  as  to-day  in  more 
northern  regions,  there  was  a  regular  "  seal  fishery," 
and  vast  numbers  of  seals  were  annually  slaughtered 
for  the  sake  of  their  skins  and  fat.  The  fur  of  both 
our  native  species,  though  differing  vastly  from  the 
soft  under- fur  of  the  fur-seals,  or  Otariae,  of  the  North 
Pacific — which  belong  to  a  different  section  of  the  seal 
group,  having  small  external  "  ears,"  and  hind  feet 
which  can  be  moved  forward  and  used  in  walking — is 
yet  largely  used  for  making  gloves  and  thick  overcoats. 


THE  GREAT  GREY  SEAL  35 

To-day  the  number  of  British  seals  killed  and  brought 
to  market  is  so  small  that  no  local  fishery  interests 
would  suffer  were  all  protected  by  the  law  during  the 
spring  and  summer,  when  breeding  and  the  rearing  of 
the  young  is  in  progress.  There  is  even  less  reason  for 
objecting  to  the  protection  of  the  larger  and  rarer  "  Great 
Grey  Seal,"  which,  unless  it  had  been  placed  under  the 
shelter  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  would  in  five  or  six 
years  have  ceased  to  be  a  denizen  of  the  British  Islands. 

Owing  to  my  having  accidentally  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  young  grey  seal,  as  mentioned  above,  in  North 
Cornwall,  I  feel  a  special  interest  in  the  legislative 
protection  of  this  kind.  I  was  at  Boscastle  at  the  end 
of  August,  and  was  delighted  to  see  there  on  the 
morning  after  my  arrival  three  or  four  of  the  common 
seal  swimming  in  the  little  rock-bound  harbour.  I  was 
told  by  native  authorities  that  there  was  a  cave  in  the 
rocks  at  the  side  of  Pentargon  Cove,  a  couple  of  miles 
distant  (formerly  inaccessible  from  the  cliffs),  where 
these  seals  breed,  and  that  it  had  been  the  custom  of 
some  of  the  young  men  of  the  district  to  go  round 
there  in  a  boat  when  wind  and  tide  served  in  the  early 
spring  and  "  raid "  the  cave.  They  could  get  in  at 
low  tide,  and,  armed  with  heavy  cudgels,  they  would 
attack  the  seals  which  were  congregated  in  the  cavern 
to  the  number  of  thirty  or  forty.  A  single  well-delivered 
blow  on  the  nose  was  sufficient,  I  was  assured,  to  kill  a 
full-grown  seal,  and  if  fortunate  the  raiders  might  secure 
ten  or  a  dozen  seals,  which  were  then  sold  for  their  skins 
and  oil  to  Bristol  dealers.  The  enterprise  was  dangerous 
on  account  of  the  rising  tide  and  the  struggles  of  the 
seals  and  their  assailants  among  the  slippery  rocks  and 
deep  pools  in  the  darkness  of  the  cave.  Cruel  and 
savage  as  the  adventure  was,  it  yet  had  its  justification 


36  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

on  a  commercial  basis — similar  to  that  claimed  for  other 
"  fisheries "  of  the  great  beasts  of  the  sea  hunted  by 
man  for  their  oil  and  skins.  The  seals  of  this  cave 
were  undoubtedly  the  small  common  seal — the  Phoca 
vitulina — and  I  gathered  that  little  had  been  heard  of 
late  years  of  successful  expeditions  to  these  rocks.  I 
was,  however,  told  that  a  path  had  been  cut  and  ropes 
fastened  to  iron  stanchions  in  the  face  of  the  rocky 
cliffs  of  Pentargon  Cove  just  before  my  visit  to  Boscastle, 
which  rendered  it  now  comparatively  easy  to  descend 
the  150  feet  of  rock  from  the  hill  overlooking  it  and 
reach  the  shore  of  the  curiously  isolated  and  enclosed 
cove. 

So,  with  two  companions  —  my  sisters — I  set  off 
the  next  morning  for  Pentargon  Cove.  We  climbed 
down  the  face  of  the  cliff  by  the  aid  of  the  much-needed 
ropes  and  found  ourselves  on  the  shore,  the  tide  being 
low.  We  hoped  that  we  should  be  able  to  get  a  view 
of  the  "  seal-cave  "  and  some  of  its  inhabitants  swimming 
in  its  neighbourhood.  We  were  disappointed  in  this, 
and  my  companions  hastened  down  to  the  water's  edge, 
in  order  to  get  as  near  as  possible  to  the  rocky  sides 
of  the  cove.  I  was  about  to  follow  them  when  I  saw, 
lying  in  the  open,  on  the  pebbles  above  high-tide  mark, 
what  I  took  at  first  for  a  white  fur  cloak  left  there  by 
some  previous  visitor.  I  walked  up  to  it,  when,  to  my 
extreme  astonishment,  it  turned  round  and  displayed  to 
my  incredulous  gaze  a  pair  of  very  large  black  eyes 
and  a  threatening  array  of  teeth,  from  which  a  defiant 
hiss  was  aimed  at  me.  It  was  a  baby  seal,  covered  all 
over  with  a  splendid  growth  of  white  fur,  three  inches 
deep.  He  was  twice  as  big  as  the  fur-covered  young 
of  the  common  seal — more  than  two  feet  long — his 
black  eyes  were  as  big  as  pennies,  and  he  was  lying 


THE  GREAT  GREY  SEAL  37 

there  on  the  upper  beach,  far  from  the  water,  in  the 
full  blaze  of  the  sun,  as  dry  and  as  "  fluffy  "  as  a  well- 
dressed  robe  of  Polar  bear's  skin.  We  were  indeed  well 
rewarded  for  our  excursion  in  search  of  the  seal's  cave 
of  Pentargon  Cove !  For  this  was  a  new-born  pup  of 
the  Great  Grey  Seal,  entirely  unconnected  with  the 
inferior  population  of  the  inaccessible  cave,  laid  here 
in  the  open  by  his  mother  at  birth  (as  is  the  habit  of 
her  species),  little  suspecting  that  the  long-secluded 
shore  of  Pentargon  Cove  had  that  year  been  rendered 
accessible  to  marauding  land-beasts  for  the  first  time. 
Not  knowing  the  peculiarities  of  the  grey  seal  and  the 
refusal  of  its  young  to  enter  the  water  until  six  weeks 
after  birth,  when  it  sheds  its  coat  of  long  white  hair, 
we  cautiously  rolled  the  little  seal  on  to  my  outspread 
coat  and  carried  him  to  the  water's  edge.  After  the 
hissing  with  which  he  had  greeted  my  first  approach 
he  was  not  unfriendly  or  alarmed,  and  for  my  part  I 
must  say  that  I  have  never  yet  stumbled  upon  any  free 
gift  of  Nature  which  excited  my  admiration  and  regard 
in  an  equal  degree.  His  eyes  were  beautiful  beyond 
compare.  We  placed  him  close  to  the  water  and 
expected  him  to  wriggle  into  it  and  swim  off,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  he  wriggled  in  the  opposite  direction,  and 
slowly  made  his  way,  by  successive  heaves,  up  the  beach. 
He  was  not  more  than  a  day  or  two  old,  as  was  shown 
by  the  unshrunken  condition  of  the  umbilical  cord.  We 
did  not  like  to  leave  him  exposed  to  the  attacks  of 
vagrant  boys,  who  might  climb  down  into  the  cove,  so 
we  carried  him  on  my  coat  to  the  shelter  of  some  large 
rocks,  a  hundred  yards  along  the  shore.  There,  with 
much  regret,  we  left  him. 

But    on    the  following  evening,  as  we  sat  down  to 
dinner,  I  heard  from  some  other  visitors  at  the  Wellington 


38  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Inn,  to  whom,  under  pledge  of  secrecy,  I  had  confided 
our  discovery,  that  they  had  been  to  Pentargon  Cove  to 
visit  our  young  friend,  and  found  that  he  had  been 
removed  (probably  by  his  mother)  back  to  the  exact 
spot  where  we  had  found  him.  They  also  stated  that 
his  presence  there  had  become  known  in  the  village,  and 
that  the  conviction  had  been  expressed  that  "  the  boys  " 
would  certainly  go  and  stone  him  to  death !  I  had 
already  reproached  myself  for  going  elsewhere  that  day 
instead  of  to  Pentargon  Cove  to  look  after  my  young 
seal,  and  now  I  hastily  left  my  dinner,  procured  in  the 
village  two  men  and  a  potato  sack,  and  hurried  to 
Pentargon  Cove.  As  we  approached  the  edge  of  the 
cliff  the  sun  was  setting,  and  the  cove  was  very  still  and 
suffused  with  a  red  glow.  Then  a  weird  sound  rent  the 
air,  like  that  made  by  one  in  the  agonies  of  sea-sickness. 
It  was  the  little  seal  calling  for  his  mother !  It  is  the 
habit  of  the  females  of  this  species  to  leave  the  shore 
during  the  day  when  they  go  in  search  of  the  fish  on 
which  they  feed,  and  to  return  to  their  young  in  the 
evening,  in  order  to  suckle  them.  I  could  see,  from  above, 
my  baby  friend — a  little  white  figure  all  alone  in  the 
deepening  gloom  of  the  great  cliffs — raising  his  head 
and,  by  his  cries,  helplessly  inviting  his  enemies  to  come 
and  destroy  him.  In  a  few  minutes  we  were  down  by 
his  side,  had  placed  him  in  the  potato  sack,  and  brought 
him  to  the  upper  air.  On  the  way  to  the  inn  I  pur- 
chased a  large-sized  baby's  bottle  with  a  fine  indiarubber 
teat.  We  placed  the  little  seal  on  straw  in  a  large  open 
packing-case  in  the  stables,  whilst  the  kitchen-maid 
warmed  some  milk  and  filled  the  feeding-bottle.  Then 
I  brought  it  to  him,  looking  down  on  his  broad,  white- 
furred  head,  with  its  wonderful  eyes,  set  so  as  to  throw 
their  appealing  gaze  upwards.  I  touched  his  nose  with 
the  milky  indiarubber  teat.  With  unerring  precision 


THE  GREAT  GREY  SEAL  39 

his  lips  closed  on  it,  his  nostrils  opened  and  shut  in 
quick  succession,  and  he  had  emptied  the  bottle.  I 
gave  him  a  quart  of  milk  before  leaving  him  and  getting 
my  own  belated  meal.  He  slept  comfortably,  but  at 
four  in  the  morning  his  cries  rent  the  air,  and  threatened 
to  wake  every  one  in  the  hotel.  I  had  to  get  up,  descend 
to  the  kitchen,  warm  some  more  milk  for  him,  and 
satisfy  his  hunger.  He  became  fond  of  the  bottle,  and 
also  of  the  friend  who  held  it  for  him.  I  arranged  to 
take  him  to  the  Zoological  Gardens  when,  after  three 
days,  I  left  Boscastle.  He  travelled  to  London  in  the 
guard's  van  in  a  specially  constructed  cage,  and  was  as 
beautiful  and  happy  as  ever  when  I  handed  him  over  to 
the  superintendent  at  Regent's  Park. 

In  those  days  (as  it  happened)  there  was  little  under- 
standing or  care  at  "  the  Gardens  "  as  to  the  feeding  of 
an  exceptional  young  animal  like  my  little  seal.  It  is 
possible  to  treat  cow's  milk  so  as  to  render  it  suitable  to 
a  young  carnivore,  much  as  it  is  "  humanized  "  for  the 
feeding  of  human  babies,  and  I  was  willing  to  pay  for  a 
canine  foster-mother  were  such  procurable.  I  had  then 
to  leave  London  in  order  to  preside  over  one  of  the 
sections  of  the  British  Association's  meeting  at  South- 
port,  and  intended  to  take  complete  charge  of  my  baby 
seal  upon  my  return.  But  in  less  than  a  week  the 
neglectful  guardians  at  Regent's  Park  had  killed  him 
with  stale  cow's  milk.  I  believe  such  a  foundling  would 
have  a  better  chance  there  to-day,  but  the  rearing  of 
young  mammals  away  from  their  mother  is,  of  course,  a 
difficult  and  uncertain  job. 

I  do  not  regret  having  taken  the  baby  seal  from 
Pentargon  Cove,  for  I  undoubtedly  saved  him  from  a 
violent  death,  whilst  his  mother  would  soon  recover  from 


40  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  loss  due  to  my  action — a  loss  to  which  she  and  her 
fellow  "  grey  seal-mothers "  must  be  not  unfrequently 
exposed  from  other  causes.  I  do  regret,  however,  that 
it  did  not  occur  to  me  until  too  late  that  it  would  have 
been  a  wonderful  experience  to  lie  quietly  on  the  shore 
some  few  yards  from  the  baby  seal,  as  the  sun  set,  and 
then  to  see  and  hear  the  great  seal-mother — 7  or  8  feet 
long — swim  into  the  cove,  raise  her  gigantic  bulk  on  the 
shore,  and  heave  herself  across  the  pebbles  to  her  eager 
child.  To  witness  the  embraces,  caresses,  and  endear- 
ments of  the  great  mysterious  beast  would  have  been  a 
revelation  such  as  a  naturalist  values  beyond  measure. 
And  so  1  hope,  with  all  my  heart,  that  Mr.  Lyell  will 
succeed  in  his  good  work  of  protecting  the  Great  Grey 
Seal. 


CHAPTER   V 
THE  GROUSE  AND  OTHER  BIRDS 

IN  August  when  so  many  people  are  either  shooting 
or  eating  that  delectable  bird — the  grouse — a  few 
words  about  him  and  his  kind  will  be  seasonable. 
"  Grouse  "  is  an  English  word  (said  to  have  meant  in  its 
original  form  "  speckled  "),  and  by  "  the  "  grouse  we  mean 
the  British  red  grouse,  which,  though  closely  related  to 
the  willow  grouse,  called  "  rype  "  (pronounced  "  reepa  ")  in 
Norway — a  name  applied  also  to  the  ptarmigan — is 
one  of  the  very  few  species  of  birds  peculiar  to  the 
British  Islands.  The  willow-grouse  turns  white  in 
winter,  and  is  often  called  the  ptarmigan,  which  it  is  not, 
though  closely  related  to  it.  The  willow-grouse  inhabits 
a  sub-arctic  zone,  which  extends  from  Norway  across 
the  whole  continent  of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  through 
North  America,  from  the  Aleutian  Islands  to  Newfound- 
land. The  red  grouse  does  not  naturally  occur  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  British  Islands.  It  does  not  turn  white 
in  winter,  and  the  back  of  the  cock  bird  is  darker  in 
colour,  as  is  also  the  whole  plumage  of  the  hen  bird, 
than  in  the  willow-grouse.  The  red  grouse  lives  on 
heather-grown  moors ;  the  willow-grouse  prefers  the 
shrubby  growths  of  berry-bearing  plants  interspersed 
with  willows,  whence  its  name.  No  distinction  can  be 
discovered  in  the  voice,  eggs,  build,  and  anatomical 
details  of  the  two  species.  The  red  grouse  and  the 


42  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

willow-grouse  were,  at  no  very  distant  prehistoric  period, 
one  species,  but  the  race  which  has  become  isolated  in 
these  islands  has  just  the  small  number  of  marked 
differences  which  I  have  mentioned,  and  it  breeds  true, 
and  therefore  we  call  it  a  distinct  "  species."  In  Scotland, 
the  red  grouse  is  called  "  muir-fowl,"  and  a  century  ago 
was  almost  invariably  spoken  of  in  England  as  moor- 
fowl,  or  moor-game.  It  is  found  on  moors  from  Mon- 
mouthshire northward  to  the  Orkneys,  and  inhabits 
similar  situations  in  Wales  and  Ireland. 

The  red  grouse  and  the  willow-grouse  belong  to  a 
section  or  "  order  "  of  birds  which  are  classified  together 
because  they  all  have  many  points  in  common  with 
"  the  common  fowl "  or  jungle-cock  and  the  pheasants. 
That  order  or  pedigree-branch  was  named  by  Huxley 
Alectoromorphae,  or  cock-like  birds,  perhaps  more 
simply  termed  Galliformes,  Gallus  being  the  Latin 
name  for  "  chanticleer."  When  there  is  a  question  of 
the  groups  recognized  in  the  classification  of  animals, 
it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  once  for  all,  that  the  biggest 
branches  of  the  animal  pedigree  are  called  "  phyla  "  (or 
sub-kingdoms)  ;  that  these  have  branches  or  sub-divisions 
which  are  called  "  classes "  (birds  are  a  class  of  the 
phylum  Vertebrata).  Classes  divide  into  "  orders " ; 
these  often  are  subdivided  into  "  sub-orders."  Orders 
comprise  each  several  smaller  branches  called  "  families," 
families  branch  into  "  genera,"  and  each  "  genus  "  con- 
tains a  number  of  "  species  "  which  have  diverged  from 
a  common  ancestral  form,  and  become  more  or  less 
stable  and  unchanging  (but  not  unchangeable)  at  the 
present  day.  The  individuals  of  a  species  are  distin- 
guishable by  certain  marks,  shape,  and  colour  from  the 
individuals  of  other  species  of  the  genus.  They  breed 
true  to  those  points  when  in  natural  conditions,  and 


THE  GROUSE  AND  OTHER  BIRDS  43 

show  some  differences  of  habit,  locality,  and  constitution 
which  emphasize  their  distinction  as  a  separate  "  species." 

The  order  Galliformes  of  the  class  Aves  or  birds  is 
one  of  some  eighteen  similar  orders  of  birds.  It  contains 
several  families,  namely,  the  grouse-birds,  the  partridges, 
the  francolins  (formerly  introduced  into  Italy  from 
Cyprus),  the  quails,  the  pheasants,  including  the  common 
fowl  or  Gallus,  the  peacocks,  the  turkeys,  and,  lastly, 
the  guinea-fowls.  The  mound-builders  and  the  South 
American  curassows  (very  handsome  birds  to  be  seen 
at  the  Zoological  Gardens)  are  families  which  have  to 
be  separated  from  the  rest  as  a  distinct  sub-order. 
Fifty  years  ago  the  pigeons  were  placed  in  one  order 
with  the  galliform  birds,  which  was  termed  "  Rasores," 
or  scratching  birds ;  but  they  are  now  separated  under 
the  name  Columbiformes. 

All  the  galliform  birds  are  specially  agreeable  to  man 
as  food,  and  the  domesticated  race  of  the  jungle-fowl — 
for  which  we  have  no  proper  English  name,  except  that 
of  "  the  "  fowl l — is  second  only  to  the  dog  in  its  close 
association  with  man.  It  seems  to  have  been  domesti- 
cated first  in  Burma,  and  was  introduced  into  China 
about  1000  B.C.,  and  through  Greece  into  Europe  about 
600  B.C.  It  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
nor  by  Homer,  nor  figured  on  ancient  Egyptian  monu- 
ments. It  was  called  "  the  Persian  bird  "  by  the  Greeks, 
indicating  that  it  came  to  them  from  the  Far  East 
through  Persia.  The  common  or  barn-door  fowl  is 
assigned  to  the  genus  Gallus,  of  which  there  are  four 
wild  species.  It  is  very  closely  related  to  the  pheasants 
(genus  Phasianus,  with  several  "  local  "  species)  ;  indeed, 

1  "  Chanticleer  "  is  the  name  given  to  the  cock-bird  of  this  species  in  the 
very  ancient  story  of  "  Renard  the  Fox," 


44  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

so  closely  that,  when  pheasants  and  "  fowls "  are  kept 
together  in  confinement  they  will  sometimes  interbreed 
and  produce  vigorous  hybrids.  The  peacocks  are  Indian, 
and  with  them  is  associated  the  Malay  Argus-pheasant. 
They  share  with  the  turkeys,  which  are  North  American 
in  origin,  the  habit  of  "  display  "  by  the  male  birds  when 
"  courting " — a  habit  which  we  see  in  a  less  marked 
form  in  the  strutting,  wing-scraping,  and  cries  of  the 
pheasants,  chanticleers,  and  grouse-birds.  The  various 
species  of  partridges  are  confined  to  the  temperate  regions 
of  the  Old  World,  but  the  word  is  wrongly  applied  in 
America  and  Australia  to  other  kinds  of  birds.  The 
guinea-fowls  are  African,  and  so  are  the  francolins  and 
quails,  the  latter  migrating  to  the  South  of  Europe.  It 
is  an  interesting  fact  that,  when  the  turkey  was  first 
brought  from  America,  about  1550,  a  confusion  grew  up 
in  Europe  between  it  and  the  guinea-fowl.  The  turkey 
was  given  a  genus  (Meleagris)  to  itself  by  Linnaeus, 
who  called  it  "  M.  gallopavo,"  whilst  the  guinea-fowl  was 
called  "  Numida  meleagris."  We  know,  at  present,  other 
"  species "  of  Meleagris  besides  M.  gallopavo,  and  other 
species  of  Numida. 

Now  we  revert  to  the  grouse-birds,  a  family  for 
which  the  zoologist's  name  is  Tetraonidas.  They  all 
have  the  beautiful  crimson  arch  of  bare  knobby  skin 
above  each  eye  which  gives  its  chief  beauty  to  our 
grouse.  The  family  contains  several  genera  and  in- 
cluded species.  The  largest  species  is  the  capercailzie 
(a  Gaelic  word),  or  cock  of  the  wood,  called  by  the 
French  "  coque  du  bois,"  by  the  Germans  "  auerhahn  " 
(auerhuhn  for  the  hen  bird),  and  by  the  Norwegians 
"  tiur."  It  is  placed  in  the  genus  Tetrao  (which  gives 
its  name  to  the  "  family "),  and  receives  the  specific 
name  "  urogallus."  This  fine  bird  was  formerly  native 


THE  GROUSE  AND  OTHER  BIRDS  45 

in  England,  as  well  as  in  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  is 
found  in  the  pine  forests  of  Europe  from  Spain  to 
Lapland  and  Greece.  It  has  been  re-established  in 
Scotland  since  1838.  An  allied  species  is  found  in 
Siberia.  The  black  grouse  (often  called  black  cock 
and  grey  hen)  is  a  second  species  of  the  genus  Tetrao, 
namely,  T.  tectrix.  It  is  often  called  "  Lyrurus  tetrix." 
The  French  name  for  it  is  "  coq  de  bruyere  "  ;  the  German 
is  "  birkhahn."  It  is  a  smaller  bird  than  the  capercailzie, 
but  frequently  produces  hybrids  with  that  species.  The 
beautifully  curled  tail-feathers  are  favourite  adornments 
for  the  hat  of  mountaineers  and  hunters  in  the  Tyrol  and 
Switzerland. 

Though  the  word  "  grouse "  may  have  been  first 
applied  (as  some  think)  to  the  black  cock,  it  is  now 
the  proper  appellation  of  the  red  grouse.  This  bird 
is  placed  by  zoologists  in  the  genus  Lagopus — the 
members  of  which  are  easily  distinguishable  from  other 
Tetraonidae  by  the  fact  that  their  feet  and  toes  are 
well  covered  with  feathers.  "  L.  scoticus  "  is  the  scientific 
name  of  the  red  grouse.  Being  a  purely  British  bird, 
it  has  no  foreign  designations.  "  L.  saliceti "  is  the 
name  of  the  allied  willow-grouse,  which  has  an  endless 
variety  of  names,  owing  to  its  great  range  of  distribution. 
The  willow-grouse  is  often  called  ptarmigan,  and  is  sold 
as  such  to  the  number  of  thousands  by  poulterers  in  our 
markets,  but  it  is  not  the  true  ptarmigan.  Owing  to  the 
fact  that  its  plumage  is  quite  white  in  winter,  there  is 
much  excuse  for  the  confusion.  The  name  "  ptarmigan  " 
is  the  Gaelic  word  "  tarmachan,"  and  no  one  has  ex- 
plained how  the  initial  "  p "  came  to  be  added  to  it. 
The  bird  called  in  Scotland  tarmachan  or  ptarmigan 
is  a  third  species  of  Lagopus.  It  is  much  rarer  in 
Scotland  than  the  red  grouse,  and  lives  in  high,  bare 


46  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

ground.  It  is  numerous  at  an  elevation  far  above  the 
growth  of  trees  in  Norway,  and  occurs  also  in  the 
Pyrenees  and  the  Alps.  It  turns  white  in  winter  (as 
do  all  the  species  of  Lagopus  except  the  red  grouse), 
and  differs  in  many  features  of  structure  from  the  red 
grouse  and  the  willow-grouse.  It  is  called  "  L. 
mutus."  A  fourth  species  of  Lagopus  is  L.  rupestris, 
of  North  America,  Greenland,  Iceland,  and  Siberia. 
Spitzbergen  has  a  fifth  species,  L.  hemileucurus,  a  large 
form.  The  sixth  and  smallest  species  of  Lagopus  is  the 
L.  leucurus  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  There  are  yet 
further  some  excellent  grouse-like  birds,  which  are 
separated  to  form  other  genera  distinct  from  Lagopus. 
Though  they  do  not  inhabit  the  British  Islands,  some 
of  them  are  brought  occasionally  to  the  London  market. 
The  hazel-hen  of  continental  Europe  is  one  of  these, 
and  is  considered  to  be  the  most  delicate  game-bird  that 
comes  to  table.  It  is  placed  in  the  genus  Bonasa,  and 
receives  the  specific  name  "  sylvestris."  The  French 
call  it  "  gelinotte  "  (under  which  name  various  kinds  of 
cold-storage  grouse  are  often  served  in  London  clubs  and 
restaurants),  the  Germans  "  hasel-huhn,"  and  the  Scandi- 
navians "  hjerpe."  It  is  a  purely  forest  bird.  It  is  re- 
presented in  North  America  by  four  other  species,  of 
which  the  best  known  is  Bonasa  umbellus,  called  by 
the  Americans  the  ruffed  grouse  or  birch-partridge. 

Another  genus  of  Tetraonidae,  or  grouse-birds,  is 
called  "  Canachites,"  and  contains  the  species  known  as  the 
Canadian  spruce-partridge,  Franklin's  spruce-partridge, 
and  the  Siberian  spruce-partridge.  Nearly  allied  to 
these  is  a  genus  Dendragapus,  with  three  North  American 
species.  Then  we  have  the  sage-cock  of  the  plains  of 
California  (Centrocerus  urophasianus),  three  species  of 
sharp-tailed  grouse  (genus  Pediocaetes),  and  "  the  prairie 


THE  GROUSE  AND  OTHER  BIRDS  47 

hen,"  of  which  three  species  are  placed  in  the  genus 
Tympanuchus.  The  United  States  have,  undoubtedly, 
a  great  variety  of  grouse-like  birds.  Nevertheless,  a  year 
ago  I  met  in  Paris  an  American  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  Boston  who  told  me  that  he  should  have  to  desert  his 
native  land  and  come  to  live  in  Europe,  because  he  could 
not  obtain  a  regular  supply  of  game-birds  for  his  table  in 
the  eastern  States.  He  was  eating  a  Scotch  grouse  at 
the  time  with  evident  satisfaction. 

The  supply  of  grouse  in  this  country  has  been 
threatened  by  disease  caused  by  the  attempt  to  make 
the  moors  carry  more  birds  than  they  would  do  under 
natural  conditions.  The  number  annually  shot  on 
British  moors  is  enormous.  Predaceous  animals  have 
been  destroyed  in  order  to  increase  the  number  of  birds, 
but  this  proceeding  has  resulted  in  allowing  the  weakly 
to  survive.  The  undisturbed  stretches  of  moorland  have 
also  of  late  years  been  greatly  broken  into  both  by  roads 
and  building,  and  by  the  too  abundant  visitation  of 
strangers  of  all  kinds.  Only  a  few  years  ago  one  moor- 
owner  was  able  to  boast  that  he  had  on  several  occasions 
killed  over  500  head  of  grouse  in  a  single  day  on  his 
moor,  and  that  in  one  season  he  and  his  guests  had 
killed  18,231  head  of  grouse  on  that  same  moor! 
Personally  I  rejoice  when  grouse  are  abundant,  but  it 
seems  to  me  possible  that  the  moor  above  mentioned 
had  been  made  to  carry,  so  to  speak,  too  heavy  a  crop. 
However,  there  is  reason  to  hope  that  the  balance  of 
Nature  is  restored  after  a  few  years  of  disease,  which  kills 
off  the  too-abundant  bird  population. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SAND  AND  PEBBLES  OF  THE  SEASHORE 


"beach"  on  our  English  coast  is  an  accumu- 
1  lation  of  pebbles  or  of  sand,  or  of  both,  often 
accompanied  by  dead  shells  and  other  fragments  thrown 
up  by  the  sea.  Very  generally  it  slopes  rapidly  from 
above  high-water  mark  to  about  half-tide  limit,  and  then 
merges  into  a  more  horizontal  expanse  of  fine,  compact 
sand.  This  last  is  not  "  a  beach  "  thrown  up  by  waves, 
but  a  sediment  or  deposit.  It  forms  a  flat,  often  ripple- 
marked  plain  (much  has  been  written  as  to  how  those 
ripple-marks  are  produced),  which  is  exposed  at  low 
water,  the  sea  retreating  for  a  quarter  or  even  half  a 
mile  or  more  over  it,  on  some  level  shores.  Sometimes, 
though  rarely,  the  sea  rises  and  falls  against  a  hard, 
rocky  cliff  without  forming  any  beach  or  exposing  any. 
"  shore  "  even  at  low  tide.  This  occurs  on  parts  of 
the  Cornish  coast,  where  the  Atlantic  beats  against 
adamantine  cliffs,  which  even  at  low  tide  rise  sheer  from 
the  water.  Again,  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  shore 
is  simply  formed  of  a  terrace  of  sloping  hard  rock, 
without  any  "  beach."  But  on  the  coast  of  England 
generally  there  is  a  good  beach  of  sand  or  pebbles,  or 
both,  overlying  the  native  rock  or  clay,  and  sometimes  it 
is  growing  every  year,  so  as  to  extend  the  land  surface 
seawards  and  add  new  acres  to  the  possessions  of  the 

landlord. 

48 


SAND  AND  PEBBLES  OF  THE  SEASHORE     49 

On  other  parts  of  the  coast  the  beach  "  travels," 
being  driven  along  the  underlying  solid  shore  by  the 
prevailing  direction  of  the  tidal  currents  and  by  the 
waves.  The  sea-waves  break  close  to  the  soft  cliffs 
of  clay,  sand,  and  sandstone.  These  are  continually 
crumbling  away  owing  to  the  action  of  land  water, 
which  soaks  from  the  surface  down  to  the  layers  of  clay 
and  forms  subterranean  springs  and  streams.  They 
undermine  the  face  of  the  cliff  and  cause  the  upper  parts 
to  topple.  When  there  is  a  big,  broad,  growing  beach 
in  front  of  such  a  cliff,  the  breaking  down  or  "  toppling  " 
of  its  face  only  leads  to  the  formation  of  a  slope  (at  the 
"  angle  of  rest  "),  and  things  remain  but  little  changed 
for  ages.  But  if  the  beach  is  not  being  piled  up  and 
added  to  and  growing  out  seawards  year  by  year,  and  is, 
on  the  contrary,  a  travelling  beach,  then  the  sea  comes 
close  up  to  the  cliff,  and  when  masses  of  it  topple  on  to 
the  beach  the  sea  washes  them  away,  and  no  "  slope  of 
repose "  is  formed.  The  cliff  keeps  on  toppling  as  it 
is  undermined  by  springs  of  land  water.  Its  natural 
buttress  against  further  breakage  —  namely,  its  own 
fallen  material — instead  of  resting  against  it  as  a  great 
sloping,  protective  bank,  is  washed  away  by  the  sea  as 
fast  as  it  falls,  and  is  carried  down  the  coast  by  the  tidal 
currents.  This  is  the  story  of  "  coast  erosion "  about 
which  there  has  recently  been  a  Government  inquiry. 
Where  the  combined  action  of  prevailing  winds  and  sea 
currents  is  throwing  up  and  adding  to  the  beach  there  is 
no  coast  erosion.  The  causes  of  the  sea  currents  on  our 
coasts  are  not  easy  to  determine,  as  they  are  connected 
with  the  general  contour  of  the  land  and  the  currents  in 
large  tracts  of  sea,  such  as  the  Channel  and  the  North 
Sea.  Coast  erosion  is  a  serious  thing.  Large  parts  of 
the  coast  of  Suffolk  and  Norfolk  are  being  thus  washed 
away.  It  can  be  prevented  by  "  holding "  the  beach 
4 


50  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

with  piles  and  boarding,  but  this  costs  too  much  to  make 
it  worth  doing  unless  the  land  so  preserved  has  a  special 
value  for  the  erection  of  houses. 

At  Felixstowe,  where  I  am  writing,  the  sea  has 
swept  away  most  of  the  flat — the  "  dunes,"  or  "  deans  " 
— covered  with  grass,  which  it  had  itself  built  up  by  a 
contrary  accumulating  action  before  the  time  of  the 
Romans.  On  this  flat  the  ancient  Roman  town  was 
built.  Why  the  sea  has  reversed  its  action  is  very 
difficult  to  say.  But  within  my  knowledge  of  this  place 
high-water  mark  has  advanced  as  much  as  300  yards 
nearer  than  it  was  to  the  old  roadway  and  to  old  houses. 
The  great  town  of  Dunwich,  which  in  the  Middle  Ages 
had  eleven  churches,  strong  fortifications,  and  a  flourishing 
trade,  stood  on  the  flat  grass-land  in  front  of  the  cliff  on 
the  Suffolk  coast.  Its  site  is  now  under  the  sea,  not  far 
from  here.  The  breaking  away  of  the  cliff  (on  to  which 
part  of  the  town  extended)  is  still  going  on  there.  A 
few  years  ago  I  saw  a  great  bricked  well  lying  like  a 
fallen  chimney  on  the  shore.  It  had  been  exposed  by 
the  crumbling  of  the  cliff,  and  at  last  fell  out  of  it. 
Once  that  well  supplied  fresh  water  to  the  monastery, 
part  of  the  walls  of  which  are  still  standing,  and  were 
formerly  three-quarters  of  a  mile  distant  from  the  sea- 
shore. The  prehistoric  cliffs  to  which  the  sea  came 
before  it  formed  the  flats  or  links  which  it  is  now  again 
eating  away,  are  often  traceable  a  mile  or  two  inland. 
On  the  other  hand,  on  parts  of  the  Lincolnshire  coast  the 
sea  has  piled  up  sand  and  shingle  and  added  valuable 
land  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of  acres  to  the  property 
of  those  whose  estates  were  bounded  by  the  shore  line, 
and  is  still  doing  so.  Perhaps  the  action  of  the  north 
wind  in  blowing  back  and  piling  up  sand  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  tide  is  influential  in  producing  this  increase 


SAND  AND  PEBBLES  OF  THE  SEASHORE     51 

of  shore-lands,  which  face  northwards.  Blown  sand 
forms  hills  30  feet  and  more  in  height  on  such  flat  lands 
as  those  of  the  Sandwich  and  Deal  "  links,"  which  have 
been  thrown  up  by  the  sea  since  St.  Augustine  landed 
at  Richborough,  then  a  seaport,  now  a  couple  of  miles 
from  the  sea.  On  the  French  coast  near  Boulogne  the 
sand  has  been  blown  inland  so  as  to  form  stratified 
deposits  on  the  low  hill  country  as  far  as  3  or  4  miles 
from  the  sea,  and  the  neighbouring  port  of  Ambleteuse, 
which  five  hundred  years  ago  had  the  chief  trade  with 
England — is  now  nothing  but  a  vast  stratified  "  dune  "  of 
blown  sand.  The  great  Napoleon  made  some  attempt 
to  reopen  the  harbour,  but  gave  it  up  as  a  bad  job ;  the 
blowing  of  sand  inwards  from  the  enormous  tract  of  flat, 
sandy  shore  was  too  much  for  his  engineers. 

The  "  erosion "  and  the  contrary  process  of  the 
"  extension  "  of  the  coast  by  the  action  of  the  waves 
and  currents  of  the  sea  must  be  kept  apart  and  dis- 
tinguished from  a  process  leading  to  similar  but  not 
identical  results,  namely,  the  actual  "  crumpling "  or 
"  buckling  "  of  the  earth's  crust,  leading  to  the  rising  of 
the  land  surface  in  some  parts  of  the  globe  relatively  to 
the  sea-level,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the  sinking  of 
the  land  beneath  the  sea  in  other  regions.  This  change 
of  the  actual  level  of  the  land  has  continually  gone  on  in 
the  past,  and  is  continually  going  on  to-day.  What  are 
called  "  raised  beaches  "  are  seen  on  many  parts  of  the 
coast.  These  are  lines  of  ancient  beach,  consisting  of 
sea-worn  pebbles,  fragments  of  shell,  etc.,  forming  terraces 
along  the  face  of  the  rocks  which  rise  from  the  present 
seashore — terraces  which  are  now  15,  30,  or  more 
feet  above  the  sea-level,  although  they  must  at  no  very 
distant  period  have  been  at  the  level  of  the  sea.  The 
land  has  risen  and  carried  them  up  out  of  reach  of  the 


52  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

waves.  Such  a  raised  beach  is  seen  along  the  rocks 
bordering  Plymouth  Sound,  at  a  height  of  some  I  5  feet 
(so  far  as  I  can,  at  this  moment,  remember)  above  high- 
water  mark.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  rock  is  lime- 
stone, and  is  dissolved  and  redeposited  by  rain  water,  as 
a  rock  of  sugar  might  be,  the  pebbles  and  shells  of  the 
old  beach  are  all  stuck  together  or  "  petrified  "  by  re- 
deposited  limestone  (carbonate  of  lime).  Lumps  of  it 
can  be  carried  away  as  specimens. 

Geological  deposits  of  much  older  date  than  these 
comparatively  recent  raised  beaches  tell  us  of  the  rising 
of  great  masses  of  land.  Thus,  for  instance,  marine 
shells  in  a  deposit  not  quite  so  old  as  our  chalk  cliffs 
and  downs,  are  present  at  a  height  of  1 0,000  feet,  forming 
part  of  the  Alps.  At  one  time  that  very  spot  was  the 
bottom  of  the  ocean,  whilst  other  tracts  of  the  earth's 
surface,  now  sunk  hundreds  of  fathoms  below  the  sea- 
level,  stood  out  as  continents,  with  hills  and  valleys  well 
raised  above  the  waters.  Direct  evidence  of  the  recent 
sinking  of  the  coast  as  distinct  from  its  erosion  is  not 
familiar  to  us  in  England.  The  evidence  of  it  is 
naturally  obliterated,  as  the  sinking  goes  on,  whereas  on 
a  rising  coast  the  evidence  is  as  naturally  preserved. 
But  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  near  Naples  the 
evidence  of  sinking  is  well  preserved,  and  has  been 
carefully  studied  and  recorded.  The  ancient  Roman 
road  is  still  sunk  beneath  the  water,  though  the  celebrated 
temple  of  Puteoli,  which  was  formerly  submerged  by  the 
sinking  of  the  land,  has  reappeared  by  a  subsequent 
elevation  of  the  same  area.  This  has  not  brought  the 
site  to  so  high  a  level  as  it  had  when  the  temple  was 
built,  as  appears  from  the  fact  that  the  Roman  paved 
roadway  close  by  is  still  some  I  5  feet  below  the  surface 
of  the  sea. 


SAND  AND  PEBBLES  OF  THR  SEASHORE     53 

A  beach  is  built  up  of  water-worn  pebbles,  consisting 
usually  of  bits  of  the  rock  of  the  immediate  vicinity, 
which  have  become  rounded  and  shaped  by  continually 
rolling  and  knocking  against  one  another  as  the  waves 
of  the  sea  throw  them  up  or  drag  them  down  the  sloping 
heap  of  like  pebbles  which  is  accumulated  near  high- 
water  line.  At  Dover  and  such  places,  under  chalk 
cliffs,  the  beach  consists  of  chalk  pebbles  oval  in  shape, 
often  of  8  or  9  inches  in  length,  with  a  large  number 
of  well-rounded  flint  pebbles  as  big  as  your  fist  inter- 
spersed, or  outnumbering  the  chalk  pebbles.  At  Tenby, 
in  South  Wales,  the  beach  consists  of  assorted  sizes  of 
limestone  pebbles,  well-worn  bits  of  the  limestone  cliffs 
of  the  neighbourhood.  Large  numbers  of  them  are 
literally  "  worm-eaten,"  being  bored  into,  hard  and  dense 
as  they  are,  by  a  little  marine  worm  (known  as  Polydora), 
which  may  be  sometimes  found  alive  and  at  work  in  these 
limestone  pebbles  lying  between  tide  limits,  or  more 
easily  at  other  places  in  similarly  placed  chalk  blocks 
or  pebbles.  On  a  coast  bounded  by  granite  cliffs  you 
get  a  beach  of  granite  pebbles ;  where  there  are  cliffs 
of  slate  or  of  sandstone,  pebbles  of  slate  or  of  sandstone. 

But  there  are  some  beaches  which,  as  remarked 
above,  are  continually  travelling  along  the  coast.  That 
on  the  English  shores  of  the  North  Sea,  for  instance, 
is  always  moving  southwards,  except  where  it  is  held 
by  piles  and  breakwaters,  locally  called  "  shies."  More- 
over, the  land  of  the  East  Coast,  especially  the  Suffolk 
and  Norfolk  coast,  in  the  course  of  its  erosion,  has  given 
back  to  the  sea  old  deposits  of  the  glacial  and  post- 
glacial period,  consisting  of  gravels  and  "  drift,"  made 
up  of  flint  pebbles  and  fragments  of  rocks  from  the 
more  northern  regions  over  which  the  great  European 
ice-cap  of  the  glacial  epoch  extended,  and  from  which 


54  DIVERSIONS  OF  A   NATURALIST 

it  ground  and  tore  the  surface  rock  and  carried  large 
and  small  masses — boulders  and  incredible  millions  of 
tons  of  broken  up  fragments — and  spread  them  over 
East  Anglia  (where  they  form  the  so-called  "glacial 
drift "),  and  over  regions  still  submerged  in  the  North 
Sea.  Consequently  the  beach  on  the  Suffolk  seashore 
has  a  specially  variegated  assortment  of  pebbles  from 
all  sorts  of  more  northerly  situated  rocks  —  though 
small  flint  pebbles,  derived  directly  from  glacial  drift  and 
by  the  drift  from  the  chalk  land-surface  (the  chalk  itself 
not  now  reaching  the  shore-line  of  East  Anglia),  are 
greatly  predominant.  It  is  in  the  chalk  that  flint  takes 
its  origin,  being  found  there  as  large  irregular  nodules 
and  sheets. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  A   SEABEACH 

1ONCE  went  down  to  Aldeburgh,  on  the  Suffolk 
coast,  with  a  party  of  friends,  which  included  an 
American  writer,  himself  as  delightful  and  charming  as 
his  stories.  Why  should  I  not  give  his  name?  It  was 
Cable,  the  author  of  "  Old  Creole  Days."  We  walked 
through  the  little  town  to  the  sea-front,  and  came  upon 
the  immense  beach  spreading  out  for  miles  towards 
Orford  Ness.  "  Well,  I  never ! "  said  he  to  me ;  "I 
suppose  the  hotel  people  have  put  those  stones  there  to 
make  a  promenade  for  the  visitors.  It's  a  big  thing." 
It  took  me  some  time  to  persuade  him  that  they  were 
brought  there  by  the  sea  and  spread  out  by  it  alone. 
It  was  his  first  visit  to  Europe,  but  he  had  seen  the 
seashore  on  the  other  side,  and  there  was  nothing  like 
this  over  there,  he  declared.  A  similar  readiness  to 
ascribe  Nature's  handiwork  to  the  enterprise  of  hotel- 
keepers  led  a  visitor  to  the  Bel  Alp,  in  the  Rhone 
Valley,  when  he  looked  down  from  that  high-placed 
hostelry  on  to  the  great  Aletsch  glacier,  with  its  central 
"  moraine  "  of  huge  rock  masses  and  debris,  to  exclaim, 
"  I  see  the  proprietor  has  spread  a  cinder-path  along  the 
glacier  to  prevent  us  from  slipping.  It's  a  convenience, 
no  doubt,  but  gives  a  nasty  dirty  look  to  the  snow." 
Mr.  Cable,  when  he  once  realized  that  the  great 
Aldeburgh  beach  was  a  natural  production,  did  what  a 


56  DIVERSIONS  OF   A  NATURALIST 

true  poet  and  naturalist  must  do — he  fell  in  love  with 
it,  and  spent  hours  in  filling  his  pockets  with  strange- 
looking  pebbles  of  all  kinds  until  he  was  brought  into 
the  house  to  dinner  by  main  force,  when  he  spread  his 
collection  on  the  table,  and  demanded  an  explanation 
of  "  what,  whence,  and  why "  in  regard  to  each  pebble. 
Our  companions — a  great  lawyer,  a  military  hero,  a 
politician,  and  two  "  learned  men  " — regarded  him  as 
eccentric,  not  to  say  childish.  But  I  entirely  sym- 
pathized with  him,  and  when  next  day  we  sailed  down 
to  Orford  and  stood  in  front  of  the  old  Norman  fortress, 
he  further  established  himself  in  my  regard  by  deeply 
sighing  and  exclaiming,  "  So  that  is  a  real  English 
castle ! "  whilst  several  large  tears  quietly  streamed 
down  his  undisturbed  countenance. 

To  give  an  idea  of  what  various  rocks  from  far- 
distant  localities  may  be  brought  together  on  an  East 
Coast  beach,  take  that  of  Felixstowe  as  an  example. 
What  is  true  of  the  East  Coast  is  to  some  extent  also 
true  of  the  South  Coast,  and,  indeed,  wherever  the  sea 
makes  the  pebbles  of  a  modern  beach  from  the  materials 
furnished  by  the  breaking  up  of  old  deposits,  which  were 
in  their  day  brought  by  ice-flows  or  torrential  currents 
from  remote  regions.  The  most  abundant  kind  of 
pebbles  on  the  Felixstowe  beach  are  small,  rounded, 
somewhat  flat  pieces  of  flint,  derived  not  directly  from 
the  chalk  which  .is  the  "  stratum  "  or  "  bed  "  in  which 
flint  is  originally  formed,  but  from  the  Red  Crag  capping 
the  clay  cliffs  (London  clay  or  early  Eocene),  and  also 
from  surface  washings  and  "  gravels  "  (of  later  age  than 
the  crag)  farther  north,  whence  they  have  travelled  south- 
ward with  many  other  constituents  of  the  beach.  All 
these  flints  are  stained  ruddy  brown  or  yellow  by  iron — 
a  process  they  underwent  when  lying  in  the  gravels  or 


THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  A  SEABEACH       57 

in  the  crag  in  which  they  were  deposited  as  pebbles, 
broken,  washed,  and  rolled  ages  ago  from  the  chalk. 
The  iron  is  in  a  high  state  of  oxidation,  and  stains  not 
only  flint  pebbles  but  the  sands  of  the  Red  Crag  and 
later  gravels  a  bright  orange-red,  or  sometimes  a  less 
ruddy  yellow.  The  iron  comes  originally  from  very 
ancient  igneous  rocks  in  which  it  is  black  and  usually 
combined  with  silica.  The  chalk  flints  are  always,  owing, 
it  seems,  to  minute  quantities  of  carbon,  quite  black  in 
the  mass,  but  thin,  translucent  splinters  have  a  yellowish- 
brown  tint.  The  flints  are  free  from  iron  stain  when 
taken  direct  from  the  chalk.  The  commonest  pebble 
next  to  flint  is  milky  quartz,  or  opaque  white  quartz. 
This  is  derived  from  some  far  northern  source,  where 
there  are  igneous  rocks  traversed  by  veins  of  this 
substance  (perhaps  Norway).  Quartz,  like  flint,  is  pure 
silica,  the  oxide  of  the  element  silicon.  It  appears  in 
another  form  as  rock-crystal,  and  also  as  chalcedony 
and  agate.  Opal  also  is  pure  silica,  but  differs  from 
quartz  and  its  varieties  in  being  non-crystalline  or 
amorphous,  and  in  being  less  hard  and  of  less  specific 
gravity  than  quartz.  Opal  is  soluble  in  alkaline  water 
containing  free  carbonic  acid,  such  as  are  many  natural 
waters  and  the  sea  !  But  quartz  is  not  so.  The  siliceous 
"  spicules  "  and  skeletons  of  many  microscopic  animals 
and  plants  are  "  opal."  The  gem  known  as  "  opal  "  is 
a  variety  owing  its  beauty  to  minute  fissures  in  its  sub- 
stance which  break  up  light  into  the  prismatic  colours. 

A  great  deal  rarer  than  the  milky  quartz,  but  well 
known  on  the  East  Coast  on  account  of  their  beauty, 
and  often  sought  for  to  be  cut  and  polished,  are  the 
small  rolled  bits  or  pebbles  of  chalcedony  or  agate, 
which  have  been  bedded  before  their  appearance  on  the 
beach  in  some  of  the  pre-glacial  or  post-glacial  gravels, 


58  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

together  with  the  flints,  and  in  consequence  are  often 
stained  of  a  fine  red.  Such  clear  red-stained  chalcedony 
is  called  "  carnelian " ;  if  the  banded  agate  structure 
shows,  it  is  called  agate  rather  than  carnelian.  It  is 
wonderful  how  many  beautiful  pieces  of  both  carnelian 
and  agate  are  picked  up  on  the  Felixstowe  beach,  rarely, 
however,  bigger  than  a  hazel  nut.  The  original  source 
of  these  carnelians  and  agates  is  the  East  of  Scotland. 
At  Montrose  you  may  see  the  igneous  rock  containing 
pale,  lavender-coloured  agate  nodules  as  big  as  a  potato, 
the  breaking  and  rolling  of  which  by  the  sea  into  small 
bits  has  furnished  our  Suffolk  carnelians.  Quartzite — 
more  or  less  translucent,  sandy-looking  pebbles,  colour- 
less or  yellow :  jasper,  black  or  green  with  red  veining : 
a  fine  wine-red  or  purple  stone  often  veined  with  quartz 
— are  all  more  or  less  common,  and  come  from  northern 
igneous  rocks — possibly  some  from  Scandinavia  and 
some  from  the  breaking  up  of  an  ancient  "  breccia  "  of 
the  Triassic  age,  which  still  exists  northwards  of  East 
Anglia. 

Other  pebbles  very  common  on  this  shore  are  those 
formed  in  a  curious  way  by  the  sea-water  from  the  clay 
cliffs  and  sea  bottom  which  are  here  present,  and  are  of 
that  special  geologic  age  and  character  known  as  the 
London  clay.  The  sea  at  this  moment  is  continually 
converting  the  clay  of  our  Suffolk  shore  into  "  cement- 
stone  "  by  a  definite  chemical  process.  The  clay  and 
many  other  things  submerged  in  the  sea,  as  Shakespeare 
knew,  "  undergo  a  sea-change."  The  cement-stone  used 
to  be  dredged  up  from  the  sea  bottom  and  ground  to 
make  cement  at  Harwich.  Great  rock-like  slabs  of  it 
pave  the  shore  at  low  water,  and  pebbles  of  it  are 
abundant.  The  curious  thing  is  that  ages  ago — geo- 
logical ages,  I  mean — when  the  sea  was  throwing  up 


THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  A  SEABEACH       59 

here  the  old  shell-banks  and  sand-banks  known  nowa- 
days as  "  the  Red  and  Coralline  Crags,"  the  London 
clay  cliffs  and  clay  sea  bottom  were  in  existence  just  as 
they  are  now.  But  in  that  period  there  existed  here 
enormous  quantities  of  bones  of  whales  of  kinds  now 
extinct,  which  had  lived  a  little  earlier  in  the  sea  of  this 
area,  and  were  deposited  in  vast  quantity  as  a  sort  of 
first  layer  of  beach  or  shallow  water  sea-drift.  Bones 
consist  largely  of  phosphate  of  lime,  and  are  used  as 
manure.  In  that  old  crag  sea  the  phosphate  of  lime 
was  dissolved  from  the  deposit  of  bones,  and  as  we  find 
occurring  in  the  case  of  other  clays  and  other  bones 
elsewhere — was  chemically  taken  up  by  the  clay — the 
same  kind  of  clay  which  to-day  is  being  converted  into 
"  cement-stone."  It  was  thus,  at  that  remote  period, 
converted  into  "  clay  phosphorite,"  owing  to  the  presence 
of  the  immense  deposit  of  whales'  bones,  and  it  has  been 
known  for  sixty  years  as  Suffolk  "  coprolite,"  owing  to  a 
mistaken  notion  that  it  was  the  petrified  dung  of  extinct 
animals.  It  has  been  dug  up  by  the  ton  from  below 
the  crag  all  over  this  part  of  Suffolk,  where  it  forms, 
together  with  bones,  teeth,  flints,  and  box-stones,  a  bed 
of  small  nodules,  a  foot  or  so  thick  separating  the 
London  clay  from  the  shelly  "  crag."  This  bed  is  called 
the  Suffolk  bone-bed  or  nodule-bed.  The  phosphorite, 
or  "  coprolite,"  occurs  in  the  form  of  bits  of  clay, 
hardened  by  phosphate  of  lime,  and  of  the  colour  of 
chocolate,  and  hundreds  of  tons  of  it  have  been  used  by 
manufacturers  of  the  manure  known  as  "  superphosphate." 
Henslow,  of  Cambridge,  Darwin's  friend  and  teacher,  was 
the  first  to  point  out  its  value.  Bits  of  it,  as  well  as 
box-stones,  and  fragments  of  bone,  teeth  of  whales,  of 
sharks,  of  mastodon,  rhinoceros,  tapir,  and  other  extinct 
animals — all  fallen  from  the  bone-bed  in  the  cliff — are 
found  mixed  with  the  pebbles  of  the  Suffolk  beach  by 


60  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

those  who  lie  on  that  beach  in  the  sunshine,  and,  for 
want  of  something  better  to  do,  turn  over  handful  after 
handful  of  its  varied  material.  And,  besides  all  the 
stones  I  have  already  mentioned,  they  find  amber, 
washed  here  by  some  mysterious  currents  from  the 
Baltic,  wonderful  fossil  shells  out  of  the  crag,  the 
cameo  shell,  and  the  great  volute,  —  shells  which  are 
as  friable  as  the  best  pastry  when  dug  out  of  the  Red 
Crag,  but  here  on  the  shore  become  hardened  by 
definite  chemical  action  of  the  sea-water,  so  as  to  be 
as  firm  as  steel.  Here,  too,  the  "  chiffonier  "  of  the  sea- 
shore finds  recent  shells,  recent  bones  (slowly  dissolving 
and  wearing  away),  well-rounded  bits  of  glass,  jet 
drifted  down  from  Whitby,  Roman  coins,  bits  of  Samian 
ware  (!),  mediaeval  keys,  bits  of  coal,  burnt  flints  (from 
steamers'  furnaces),  and  box-stones. 

A  very  important  and  interesting  thing  about 
"  beaches "  is  the  way  in  which  the  pebbles  of  which 
they  consist  are  assorted  in  sizes.  Suppose  that  one 
prepares  a  trough  some  two  or  three  yards  long  and 
twelve  inches  deep,  and  lets  it  fill  with  water  from  a  con- 
stantly running  tap,  tilting  it  slightly  so  that  the  water 
will  overflow  and  run  away  at  the  end  farthest  from  the 
tap.  Then  if  one  drops  into  the  trough  near  the  tap 
handful  after  handful  of  coarse  sand  and  small  stones  of 
varied  sizes,  they  will  be  carried  along  by  the  stream, 
and  the  more  rapid  and  voluminous  the  stream  the 
farther  they  will  be  carried.  But  they  will  eventually 
sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  trough,  the  bigger  pieces  first, 
then  the  medium-sized,  then  the  small,  and  the  smaller 
in  order,  as  the  current  carries  them  along,  so  that  one 
gets  a  separation  and  sorting  of  the  solid  particles 
according  to  size,  a  very  fine  sediment  being  deposited 
last  of  all  at  the  far  end  of  the  trough.  The  waves  of 


THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  A  SEABEACH       61 

the  sea  are  continually  stirring  up  and  assorting  the 
constituents  of  the  beach  in  this  way.  Usually  the 
largest  pebbles  are  thrown  up  farthest  by  the  advancing 
waves,  and  dropped  soonest  by  the  backward  suck  of  the 
retreating  water,  so  that  one  generally  finds  a  pre- 
dominance of  big  pebbles  at  the  top  of  the  beach.  But 
on  the  flat  shore  of  firm  ripple-marked  sand  lying  lower 
down  than  the  sloping  "  beach "  and  only  exposed  at 
quite  "  low  tide,"  one  often  finds  very  big  pebbles  of  eight 
or  nine  pounds  weight  scattered  here  and  there  and  little 
rubbed  or  rounded.  They  have  gradually  moved  down 
the  sloping  beach  and  are  too  heavy  to  be  thrown  back 
again  by  the  waves  of  the  shallow  sea  which  flows  over 
the  flat  shores  characteristic  of  much  of  our  south-eastern 
and  southern  coast.  On  some  parts  of  the  coast  huge 
banks,  consisting  exclusively  of  enormous  pebbles  as  big 
as  a  quartern  loaf,  are  piled  up  by  the  waves,  forming  a 
great  ridge  often  miles  in  length,  as  at  the  celebrated 
Chesil  pebble  bank  near  Weymouth,  and  at  Westward 
Ho !  in  North  Devon.  The  presence  of  these  specially 
large  pebbles  is  due  to  the  special  character  of  the  rocks 
which  are  broken  up  by  the  sea  to  form  them,  and  to  the 
specially  powerful  wave  -  compelling  winds  and  tidal 
currents  at  the  parts  of  the  coast  where  they  are  pro- 
duced. 

One  generally  finds  a  selected  accumulation  of 
moderate-sized  pebbles  lower  down  the  beach  as  the 
tide  recedes,  and  then  still  lower  down  patches  of  sand 
alternating  with  patches  or  tracts  of  quite  small  pebbles 
not  much  bigger  than  a  dried  pea.  They  are  always 
assorted  in  sizes,  but  the  extent  of  each  tract  of  a  given 
size  of  pebble  varies  greatly  on  different  beaches  along 
the  coast,  and  even  from  day  to  day  on  the  same  shore. 
The  greater  or  less  violence  of  the  waves,  and  of  the 


62  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

currents  caused  by  wind  and  tide,  is  the  cause  of  this 
variation  and  local  difference.  The  pebbles  of  the 
"  beach  "  are,  of  course,  always  being  worn  away,  rounded 
and  rubbed  down  by  their  daily  movement  upon  one 
another,  caused  by  the  waves  as  the  tide  mounts  and 
again  descends  over  the  shore.  Even  the  biggest  stones, 
excepting  those  which  lie  in  deeper  water  beyond  the 
beach,  are  eventually  rubbed  down,  and  become  quite 
small ;  but  a  point  is  reached  when,  the  weight  of  the 
pebbles  being  very  small,  they  have  but  little  effect  in 
rubbing  down  each  other,  and  consequently  where  the 
pebbles  consist  of  very  hard  material — like  flints — the 
smallest  ones  are  not  so  much  rounded,  but  are  angular 
and  irregular  in  shape. 

Whilst  a  perfect  gradation  in  size  can  be  found  from 
the  largest  flint  pebbles  some  6  inches  or  7  inches  long 
to  the  smallest,  usually  not  bigger  than  a  split  pea 
(though  sometimes  a  patch  of  even  smaller  constituents 
may  be  found),  there  is  a  real  break  or  gap  between 
"  pebbles "  and  "  sand."  I  am  referring  now  to  what 
is  commonly  known  as  "  sand  "  on  the  southern  part  of 
the  East  Coast,  much  of  the  South  Coast,  and  the  shores 
of  Holland,  Belgium,  and  France.  There  are  "  sands  " 
of  softer  material  (limestone  and  coral  sand),  but  the 
sands  in  question  are  almost  entirely  siliceous,  made  up 
of  tiny  fragments  of  flint,  of  quartz,  agate,  and  hard, 
igneous  rock.  They  are  often  called  "  sharp "  sand. 
The  particles  forming  this  sand  are  sorted  out  by  the 
action  of  moving  water,  and  form  large  tracts  between 
tide-marks  looking  like  brown  sugar,  for  which  baby 
visitors  have  been  known  to  mistake  them,  and  accord- 
ingly to  swallow  small  handfuls.  The  strong  wind  from 
the  sea  blows  the  sand  thus  exposed,  as  it  dries,  inland 
out  of  reach  of  the  tide,  to  form  sand-dunes,  and  it  is 


THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  A  SEABEACH       63 

also  deposited,  together  with  still  finer  particles  (those 
called  "  mud  "),  on  the  shallower  parts  of  the  sea  bottom. 
The  curious  thing  about  the  particles  of  "  sharp  "  sand 
is  that  they  are  angular,  and  for  the  most  part  without 
rounded  edges.  If  you  examine  them  under  a  micro- 
scope you  will  see  that  they  do  not  look  like  pebbles — 
in  fact,  they  are  not  pebbles,  for  they  are  so  small  and 
have  so  little  weight,  or,  rather,  mass,  that  they  do  not 
rub  each  other  to  any  effect  when  moved  about  in  water. 
They  look  like,  and,  in  fact,  are,  for  the  most  part  broken 
bits  of  silica,  unworn  and  sharp-edged  splinters  and 
chips,  glass-like  in  their  transparency  and  most  of  them 
colourless,  a  few  only  iron-stained  and  yellow.  Amongst 
these  are  a  few  rounded,  almost  spherical  pieces,  which 
are  no  doubt  of  the  nature  of  minute  water-worn  pebbles. 
Although  these  few  minute  pebbles  exist  among  the 
sharp,  chiplike  particles  of  "  sand,"  it  is  clear  that  we 
must  broadly  distinguish  "  pebbles  "  of  all  sizes  down  to 
the  smallest — from  the  much  smaller  "sand  particles/' 
There  is  no  intermediate  quality  of  material  between 
"  sand  "  and  the  finest  "  shingle." 


CHAPTER    VIII 
QUICKSANDS  AND  FIRE-STONES 

THERE  are  curious  facts  about  sand  which  can  be 
studied  on  the  seashore.  There  are  the  "  quick- 
sands," mixtures  of  sand  and  water,  which  sometimes 
engulf  pedestrians  and  horsemen  at  low  tide,  not  only 
at  the  Mont  St.  Michel,  on  the  Normandy  coast,  but  at 
many  spots  on  the  English,  Welsh,  and  Scotch  coasts. 
Small  and  harmless  quicksands  are  often  formed  where 
the  sand  is  not  firmly  "  bedded "  by  the  receding  sea, 
and  the  sea-water  does  not  drain  off,  but  forms  a  sort  of 
sand-bog.  Then  one  may  also  study  the  polishing  and 
eroding  effect  of  dry  blown  sand,  which  gives  a  "  sand- 
glaze  "  to  flints,  and  in  "  sand-deserts  "  often  wears  away 
great  rocks.  The  natural  polishing  of  flints  and  other 
hard  bodies  by  fine  sand  carried  over  them  for  months 
and  years  in  succession  by  a  stream  of  water,  is  also  a 
matter  of  great  interest,  about  which  archaeologists  want 
further  information. 

A  very  interesting  fact  about  the  ordinary  sand  of 
the  seashore  is  that  two  pints  of  dry  sand  and  half  a  pint 
of  water  when  mixed  do  not  make  two  pints  and  a  half, 
but  less  than  that  quantity.  If  you  fill  a  child's  pail  with 
dry  sand  from  above  the  tide-mark,  and  then  pour  on  to 
it  some  water,  the  mass  of  sand  actually  shrinks.  The 

reason  is  that  when  the  sand  is  dry  there  is  air  between 

64 


QUICKSANDS  AND  FIRE-STONES  65 

its  particles,  but  when  the  sand-particles  are  wetted  they 
adhere  closely  to  each  other ;  the  air  is  driven  out,  and 
the  water  does  not  exactly  take  an  equivalent  space,  but 
occupies  less  room  than  the  air  did,  owing  to  the  close 
clinging  together  of  the  wet  particles.  If  you  add  a 
little  water  to  some  dry  sand  under  the  microscope,  you 
will  see  the  sand-particles  move  and  cling  closely  to  one 
another.  "  Capillary  attraction  " — the  ascent  of  liquid 
in  very  fine  tubes  or  spaces — is  a  result  of  the  same  sort 
of  adhesive  action.  If  you  walk  on  the  firm,  damp  sand 
exposed  at  low  tide  on  many  parts  of  the  seashore  when 
it  is  just  free  from  water  on  the  surface,  you  will  see 
that  when  you  put  your  foot  down  the  sand  becomes 
suddenly  pale  for  some  seven  inches  or  so  all  round  your 
foot.  The  reason  is  that  the  water  has  left  the  pale-looking 
sand  (dry  sand  looks  paler  than  wet  sand),  and  has  gone 
into  the  sand  under  your  foot,  which  is  being  squeezed 
by  your  weight.  The  water  passing  into  that  squeezed 
sand  enables  its  particles  to  sit  tighter  or  closer  together, 
and  so  to  yield  to  the  pressure  caused  by  your  weight. 
You  actually  squeeze  water  "  into  "  the  sand,  instead  of 
squeezing  water  "  out "  of  it,  as  is  usually  the  case  when 
you  squeeze  part  of  a  wet  substance — say  a  cloth  or  a 
sponge.  When  you  lift  your  foot  up,  you  find  that  your 
footmark  is  covered  with  water — the  water  you  had 
drawn  to  that  particular  spot  by  squeezing  it.  It 
separates  as  soon  as  the  pressure  is  removed. 

Quartz  and  quartzite  pebbles  occur  on  the 
South  as  well  as  the  East  Coast.  They  are  sometimes 
called  "  fire-stones,"  because  they  can  be  made  to 
produce  flashes  of  flame.  If  you  take  a  couple  of  these 
pebbles,  each  about  as  big  as  the  bowl  of  a  dessert-spoon 
(a  couple  of  flint  peebles  will  serve,  but  not  so  well),  and 
holding  one  in  each  hand  in  a  dark  room,  or  at  night, 
5 


66  DIVERSIONS  OF   A  NATURALIST 

scrape  one  with  the  other  very  firmly,  you  will  produce 
a  flash  of  light  of  an  orange  or  reddish  colour.  And  at 
the  same  time  you  will  notice  a  very  pecular  smell, 
rather  agreeable  than  otherwise,  like  that  of  burning 
vegetable  matter.  It  would  seem  that  the  rubbing 
together  of  the  stones  produces  a  fine  powder  of  some  of 
the  siliceous  substance  of  the  stone  and  at  the  same 
time  a  very  high  temperature,  which  sets  the  powder 
aflame.  I  had  the  idea  at  one  time,  based  on  the  curious 
smell  given  out  by  the  flashing  pebbles,  that  perhaps 
it  was  a  thin  coating  of  vegetable  or  other  organic 
matter  derived  from  the  sea-water  which  burns  when  the 
stones  are  thus  rubbed  together ;  but  I  found  on  chemi- 
cally cleaning  my  pebbles,  first  with  strong  acid  and 
then  with  alkali,  that  the  flame  and  the  smell  were 
produced  just  as  well  by  these  chemically  clean  stones 
as  by  those  taken  from  the  beach.  The  flame  produced 
by  the  rubbing  of  the  two  stones  seemed  then  to  be  like 
the  sparks  obtained  by  strike-a-lights  of  flint  and 
steel,  or  the  prehistoric  flint  and  pyrites.  Now,  however, 
a  new  fact  demands  consideration.  The  supposition 
that  the  powdered  silica  formed,  when  one  rubs  the  two 
pebbles  together,  is  actually  "  burnt,"  that  is  to  say, 
combined  with  the  oxygen  of  the  air  by  the  great  heat 
of  the  friction,  is  rendered  unlikely  by  the  fact  that  if 
you  perform  the  rubbing  operation  in  a  basin  of  water 
with  the  stones  submerged,  the  flash  is  produced  as 
easily  as  in  the  air.  My  attention  was  drawn  to  this 
fact  by  a  letter  from  the  well-known  naturalist  the 
Rev.  Reginald  Gatty.  I  at  once  tried  the  experiment 
and  found  the  fact  to  be  as  my  correspondent  stated. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  smell  was  produced  as  well  as  the 
flash. 

With  the  desire  to  get  further  light  on  the  subject, 


QUICKSANDS  AND  FIRE-STONES  67 

I  consulted  the  great  experimental  physicist,  my  friend 
Sir  James  Dewar,  in  his  laboratory  at  the  Royal 
Institution.  He  told  me  that  the  late  Professor  Tyndal 
used  to  exhibit  the  production  of  flame  by  the  friction  of 
two  pieces  of  quartz  in  his  lectures  on  heat,  but  made 
use  of  a  very  large  and  rough  crystal  of  quartz  (rock- 
crystal)  and  rubbed  its  rough  surface  with  another  large 
crystal.  Tyndal's  note  on  the  subject  in  his  lecture 
programme  was  as  follows  (Juvenile  Lectures  on  Heat, 
1877-78):  "When  very  hard  substances  are  rubbed 
together  light  is  produced  as  well  as  heat."  Sir  James 
Dewar  kindly  showed  me  the  crystals  used  by  Tyndal, 
the  larger  was  I  6  inches  long  and  4  or  5  inches  broad. 
We  repeated  the  experiment  in  the  darkened  lecture 
room,  and  obtained  splendid  flashes.  The  same  smell  is 
produced  when  rock-crystal  is  used  as  when  flint  or 
quartz  pebbles  are  rubbed  together.  All  three  are  the 
same  chemical  body,  namely,  silica  (oxide  of  silicon). 
We  also  found  that  when  the  crystals  were  bathed  with 
water  or  (this  is  a  new  fact)  with  absolute  alcohol,  the 
same  flashing  was  produced  by  the  friction  of  one  against 
the  other. 

Later,  with  the  kind  assistance  of  Mr.  Herbert  Smith, 
of  the  mineral  department  of  the  Natural  History 
Museum,  I  examined,  with  a  spectroscope,  the  flash  given 
by  two  quartzite  pebbles  when  rubbed  together.  No 
distinctive  lines  or  bands  were  seen  ;  only  a  "  continuous  " 
spectrum,  showing  that  the  temperature  produced  was  not 
high  enough  to  volatilize  the  silicon.  I  also  examined 
some  pebbles  of  another  very  hard  substance — nearly  as 
hard  as  silica  (rock-crystal,  quartz,  and  flint).  This  was 
what  is  called  "  corundum,"  the  massive  form  of  "  emery 
powder "  (oxide  of  aluminium).  By  grinding  two  of 
these  corundum  pebbles  with  very  great  pressure  one 


68  DIVERSIONS  OF  A   NATURALIST 

against  the  other  (using  much  greater  pressure  than  is 
needful  in  the  case  of  quartz),  I  obtained  flashes  of  light. 
It  was  not  known  previously  that  any  pebbles  except 
those  of  silica  would  give  flashes  of  light  when  rubbed 
together.  A  smell  resembling  that  given  out  by  rubbed 
quartz,  but  fainter,  was  observed. 

Those  are  the  facts — new  to  me  and  to  many  others 
— about-  this  curious  subject.  The  flashing  under  water 
is  a  very  remarkable  thing.  I  cannot  say  that  I  am 
yet  satisfied  as  to  the  nature  of  the  flash.  A  simple 
explanation  of  the  result  obtained,  when  two  dry  pebbles 
are  rubbed  together  in  the  air,  is  that  crushed  particles 
of  the  quartz  or  of  the  corundum  are  heated  by  the  heavy 
friction  to  the  glowing  point.  But  this  does  not  accord 
with  the  fact  that  submergence  in  a  liquid  does  not 
interfere  with  the  flashing.  The  rise  of  temperature 
would  certainly  be  checked  by  the  liquid.  And  the 
curious  smell  produced  is  in  no  way  explained. 

The  breaking  of  crystals  is  in  many  instances  known 
to  produce  a  flash  of  light.  Thus  a  lump  of  loaf  sugar 
broken  in  the  dark  gives  a  faint  flash  of  blue  light,  as 
anyone  can  see  for  himself  immediately  on  reading  this. 
White  arsenic  crystals  also,  when  broken  by  shaking  the 
liquid  in  which  they  have  formed,  give  out  flashes  of 
light.  Some  rare  specimens  of  diamond,  when  rubbed 
in  the  dark  with  a  chamois  leather,  glow  brightly.  The 
well-known  mineral  called  Derbyshire  spar,  "  Blue  John," 
or  fluoride  of  calcium,  when  heated  to  a  point  much 
below  that  of  a  red-hot  iron,  "  crackles  "  and  glows 
briefly  with  a  greenish  light.  The  crystals  of  phosphate 
of  lime,  called  apatite,  and  a  number  of  other  crystals 
have  this  property.  But  there  is  no  record  of  any 
peculiar  smell  accompanying  the  flashes  of  light.  It  is 


QUICKSANDS  AND  FIRE-STONES  69 

still  a  matter  open  to  investigation  as  to  whether  the 
flashing  of  pieces  of  quartz  and  rock-crystal  when  rubbed 
together  with  heavy  pressure  is  of  the  nature  of  the 
flashing  of  the  heated  crystals  of  other  minerals,  or 
whether  there  is  any  chemical  action  set  up  by  the 
friction — an  action  which  is  certainly  suggested  by  the 
very  peculiar  smell  produced.  Since  the  flashing  can 
be  produced  under  water  and  other  liquids,  it  should  be 
easy  to  obtain  some  evidence  as  to  the  chemical  nature 
of  the  flame — whether  acid  or  alkaline,  whether  capable 
of  acting  on  this  or  that  reagent  dissolved  in  the  water, 
and  whether  setting  free  any  gas  of  one  kind  or  another. 

Any  one  of  my  readers  who  chooses  can  produce 
the  wonderful  orange-coloured  flame  by  rubbing  two 
quartz  or  flint  pebbles  together  in  the  dark,  and  can 
have  the  further  gratification  of  producing  with  the 
utmost  ease  the  mysterious  and  weird  phenomenon  of  a 
flame  under  water,  and  may,  perhaps,  by  further  experi- 
ment, explain  satisfactorily  this  unsolved  marvel  which 
has  haunted  some  of  us  since  childhood. 


CHAPTER    IX 
AMBER 

AMBER  is  not  unfrequently  picked  up  among  the 
pebbles  of  the  East  Coast.  I  once  picked  up 
a  piece  on  the  beach  at  Felixstowe  as  big  as  a  turkey's 
egg,  thinking  it  was  an  ordinary  flint-pebble  and  intend- 
ing to  throw  it  into  the  sea,  when  my  attention  was 
arrested  by  its  extraordinary  lightness,  and  I  found  that 
I  had  got  hold  of  an  unusually  large  lump  of  amber. 
There  is  a  locality  where  amber  occurs  in  considerable 
quantity.  It  is  a  long  way  off — namely,  the  promontory 
called  Samland  near  Kbnigsberg  on  the  Prussian  shore  of 
the  Baltic.  There  it  occurs  with  fossil  wood  and  leaves 
in  strata  of  early  Tertiary  age,  deposited  a  little  later 
than  our  "  London  clay."  It  used  to  be  merely  picked 
up  on  the  shore  there  until  recent  times,  when  "  mining  " 
for  it  was  started.  From  this  region  (the  Baltic  coast  of 
Prussia)  amber  was  carried  by  the  earliest  traders  in 
prehistoric  times  to  various  parts  of  Europe.  Their 
journeyings  can  be  traced  by  the  discovery  of  amber 
beads  in  connexion  with  interments  and  dwelling-places 
along  what  are  called  "  amber  routes "  radiating  from 
the  amber  coast  of  Prussia.  To  reach  the  East  Coast 
of  England  the  bits  of  amber  would  have  to  be  carried 
by  submarine  currents.  Amber  travels  faster  and  farther 
than  ordinary  stones,  on  account  of  its  lightness.  What 
has  been  held  to  be  amber  is  found,  also  embedded  in 


AMBER  71 

ancient  Tertiary  strata,  in  small  quantity  in  France,  in 
Sicily,  in  Burma,  and  in  green  sand  (below  the  chalk) 
in  the  United  States.  The  Sicilian  amber  (called 
"  Simetite  ")  was  not  known  to  the  ancients  :  it  is  remark- 
able for  being  "  fluorescent/'  as  is  also  some  recently 
discovered  in  Southern  Mexico.  But  it  is  possible  that 
chemically  these  substances  are  not  quite  the  same  as 
true  amber.  Amber  is  a  fossil  resin  or  gum,  similar  to 
that  exuded  by  many  living  trees,  such  as  gum-copal. 
It  has  been  used  as  an  ornament  from  prehistoric  times 
onwards,  and  was  greatly  valued  by  the  Egyptians, 
Greeks,  and  Romans,  and  by  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors, 
not  only  for  decorative  purposes,  but  as  a  "  charm,"  it 
being  supposed  to  possess  certain  magical  properties. 

Amber  (it  is  generally  believed)  comes  slowly  drifting 
along  the  sea  bottom  to  the  Suffolk  shore  from  the 
Baltic.  Lumps  as  big  as  one's  fist  are  sometimes  picked 
up  here.  The  largest  pieces  on  record  found  on  the 
Baltic  shore,  or  dug  out  of  the  mines  there,  are  from 
12  to  1 8  Ib.  in  weight,  and  valued  at  £1000.  A  party 
sent  by  the  Emperor  Nero  brought  back  13,000  Ib.  of 
amber  from  the  Baltic  shores  to  Rome.  The  bottom 
currents  of  seas  and  oceans,  such  as  those  which  possibly 
bring  amber  to  our  shores,  are  strangely  disposed.  The 
Seigneur  of  Sark  some  fifty  years  ago  was  shipwrecked 
in  his  yacht  near  the  island  of  Guernsey ;  he  lost,  among 
other  things,  a  well-fastened,  strongly-made  chest,  con- 
taining silver  plate.  It  was  found  a  year  later  in  deep 
water  off  the  coast  of  Norway  and  restored  to  him  !  In 
the  really  deep  sea,  over  1000  fathoms  down,  there 
are  well-marked  broad  currents  which  may  be  described 
as  rivers  of  very  cold  water  (only  four  degrees  or  so 
above  freezing-point).  They  flow  along  the  deep  sea 
bottom  and  are  sharply  marked  off  from  the  warmer 


72  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

waters  above  and  to  the  side.  Their  inhabitants  are 
different  from  those  of  the  warmer  water.  They  are  due 
to  the  melting  of  the  polar  ice,  the  cold  water  so  formed 
sinking  at  once  owing  to  its  greater  density  below  the 
warmer  water  of  the  surface  currents.  These  deep 
currents  originate  in  both  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions, 
and  the  determination  of  their  force  and  direction,  as 
well  as  of  those  of  other  ocean  currents,  both  deep  and 
superficial,  such  as  the  warm  "  Gulf  Stream,"  which 
starts  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  the  great  equatorial 
currents,  is  a  matter  of  constant  study  and  observation, 
in  which  surveying  ships  and  skilled  observers  have  been 
employed. 

Amber  has  not  only  been  valued  for  its  beauty  of 
colour — yellow,  flame-colour,  and  even  deep  red  and 
sometimes  blue — for  its  transparency,  its  lightness,  and 
the  ease  with  which  it  can  be  carved,  but  also  on  account 
of  certain  magical  properties  attributed  to  it.  Pliny,  the 
great  Roman  naturalist  of  the  first  century  A.D.,  states 
that  a  necklace  of  amber  beads  protects  the  wearer 
against  secret  poisoning,  sorcery,  and  the  evil  eye.  It 
is  first  mentioned  by  Homer,  and  beads  of  it  were  worn 
by  prehistoric  man.  Six  hundred  years  B.C.,  a  Greek 
observer  (Thales)  relates  that  amber  when  rubbed  has 
the  power  of  attracting  light  bodies.  That  observation 
is  the  starting-point  of  our  knowledge  of  electricity,  a 
name  derived  from  the  Greek  word  for  amber,  "  electron." 
In  Latin,  amber  is  called  "  succinum."  By  heating  in 
oil  or  a  sand-bath,  amber  can  be  melted,  and  the  softened 
pieces  squeezed  together  to  form  larger  masses.  It  can 
also  be  artificially  stained,  and  cloudy  specimens  are 
rendered  transparent  by  heating  in  an  oil-bath. 

Amber  is  the  resinous  exudation  of  trees   like   the 


AMBER  73 

"  Copal  gum  "  of  East  Africa  and  the  "  Kauri  resin  "  or 
"  Dammar  "  of  New  Zealand.  Both  of  these  products 
are  very  much  like  amber  in  appearance,  and  can  be 
readily  mistaken  for  it.  The  trees  which  produced  the 
amber  of  the  Baltic  were  conifers  or  pine  trees,  and 
flourished  in  early  Tertiary  times  (many  millions  of  years 
ago).  Their  leaves,  as  well  as  insects  of  many  kinds, 
which  have  been  studied  and  named  by  entomologists, 
are  found  preserved  in  it.  There  is  a  very  fine  collection 
of  these  insects  in  the  Natural  History  Museum  in 
London.  It  is  probable  that  more  than  one  kind  of 
tree  produced  the  amber-gum,  and  that  its  long  "  fossiliza- 
tion "  has  resulted  in  some  changes  in  its  density  and 
its  chemical  composition.  The  East  African  copal  is 
formed  by  a  tree  which  belongs  to  the  same  family  as 
our  beans,  peas,  and  laburnum.  It  is  obtained  when 
freshly  exuded,  but  the  best  kind  is  dug  by  the  negroes 
out  of  the  ground,  where  copal  trees  formerly  grew  and 
have  left  their  remains,  so  that  copal,  like  amber,  is  to  a 
large  extent  fossilized.  The  same  is  true  of  the  New 
Zealand  dammar  or  kauri  gum,  which  is  the  product  of 
a  conifer  called  "  Agathis  australis,"  and  is  very  hard  and 
amber-like  in  appearance.  Chemically  amber,  copal,  and 
dammar  are  similar  to  one  another  but  not  identical. 
Amber,  like  the  other  two,  has  been  used  for  making 
"  varnish,"  and  the  early  Flemish  painters  in  oils,  as  well 
as  the  makers  of  Cremona  violins,  made  use  of  amber 
varnish. 

A  medicament  called  "  eau  de  luce "  was  formerly 
used,  made  by  dissolving  one  of  the  products  of  the  dry 
distillation  of  amber  (called  "  oil  of  amber ")  in  alcohol. 
Now,  however,  amber  is  used  only  for  two  purposes — 
besides  decoration — namely,  for  the  mouthpieces  of  pipes 
and  cigar  tubes  and  for  burning  (for  amber,  like  other 


74  DIVERSIONS  OF   A  NATURALIST 

resins,  burns  with  a  black  smoke  and  agreeable  odour) 
as  a  kind  of  incense  (especially  at  the  tomb  of  Mahomet 
at  Mecca).  These  uses  are  chiefly  Oriental,  and  most 
European  amber  now  goes  to  the  East.  In  China  they 
use  a  fine  sort  of  amber,  obtained  from  the  north  of 
Burma.  The  use  of  amber  as  a  mouthpiece  is  con- 
nected with  its  supposed  virtues  in  protecting  the  mouth 
against  poison  and  infection.  It  is  softer  than  the  teeth, 
and  therefore  pleasant  to  grip  with  their  aid  ;  but  as  a 
cigar  or  cigarette  tube  it  is  disadvantageous,  as  it  does 
not  absorb  the  oil  which  is  formed  by  the  cooling  of  the 
tobacco  smoke  passing  along  it,  but  allows  it  to  condense 
as  an  offensive  juice. 

Forty  years  ago  an  old  lady  used  to  sit  in  the 
doorway  of  her  timber-built  cottage  in  the  village  of 
Trimley  (where  there  are  the  churches  of  two  parishes 
in  one  churchyard),  smoking  a  short  clay  pipe  and 
carving  bits  of  amber  found  on  the  Suffolk  beach  into 
the  shape  of  hearts,  crosses,  and  beads.  She  would 
carve  and  polish  the  amber  you  had  found  yourself 
whilst  you  joined  her  in  a  friendly  pipe.  You  were 
sure  in  those  days  of  the  genuine  character  of  the 
amber,  jet,  and  agate  sold  as  "  found  on  the  beach." 
Nowadays  these  things,  as  well  as  polished  agates  and 
"  pebbles  from  the  beach,"  are,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
manufactured  in  Germany,  and  sent  to  many  British 
seaside  resorts,  like  the  false  coral  and  celluloid  tortoise- 
shell  which,  side  by  side  with  the  genuine  articles,  are 
offered  by  picturesque  Levantines  to  the  visitors  at  hotels 
on  the  Riviera,  and  even  in  Naples  itself.  Nevertheless, 
genuine  and  really  fine  specimens  of  amber  picked  up  on 
the  beach  and  polished  so  as  to  show  to  full  advantage 
their  beautiful  colour  and  "  clouding "  can  still  be 
purchased  in  the  jeweller's  shop  at  Aldeburgh  on  the 


AMBER  75 

Suffolk   coast   near   the   great   pebble  beach  of  Orford- 
ness. 

There  are  difficulties  about  using  the  word  "  amber  " 
with  scientific  precision.  The  fossil  resins  which  pass 
under  this  name  in  commerce,  and  are  obtained  in  various 
localities,  including  the  Prussian  mines  on  the  Baltic,  are 
undoubtedly  the  product  of  several  different  kinds  of 
trees,  and,  from  the  strictly  scientific  chemical  point  of 
view,  they  are  mixtures  in  varying  proportions  of  different 
chemical  substances.  The  merchant  is  content  with  a 
certain  hardness  (which  he  tests  with  a  penknife), 
transparency,  and  colour,  and  also  attaches  great 
importance  to  the  test  of  burning  a  few  fragments  in  a 
spoon,  when,  if  the  material  is  to  pass  as  "  amber,"  it 
should  give  an  agreeable  perfume.  Scientifically  speak- 
ing, "  amber "  differs  from  other  "  resins,"  including 
copal,  in  having  a  higher  melting  point,  greater  hard- 
ness, slighter  solubility  in  alcohol  and  in  ether,  and 
in  containing  "  succinic  acid "  as  an  important  con- 
stituent, which  the  other  resins,  even  those  most  like  it, 
do  not.  True  amber  thus  defined  is  called  "  succinite," 
but  several  other  resins  accompany  it  even  as  found  in 
its  classical  locality — the  Baltic  shore  of  Prussia — and, 
owing  to  their  viscid  condition  before  fossilization,  may 
have  become  mixed  with  it  One  of  these  is  called 
"  gedanite,"  and  is  used  for  ornamental  purposes.  It  is 
more  brittle  than  amber,  and  contains  no  succinic  acid. 
It  is  usually  clear  and  transparent,  and  of  a  pale  wine- 
yellow  colour. 

It  is  not  possible  to  be  certain  about  the  exact 
nature  of  what  appears  to  be  a  "  piece  of  amber  "  thrown 
up  on  the  seashore,  without  chemical  examination.  A 
year  or  two  ago  a  friend  brought  to  me  a  dark  brownish- 


76  DIVERSIONS   OF  A  NATURALIST 

yellow-coloured  piece  of  what  looked  like  amber,  which 
(so  my  friend  stated)  had  been  picked  up  on  the  shore 
at  Aldeburgh.  It  was  as  big  as  three  fingers  of  one's 
hand,  very  transparent  and  fibrous-looking,  owing  to  the 
presence  of  fine  bubbles  in  its  substance  arranged  in 
lines.  I  found  an  exactly  similar  piece  from  the  same 
locality  in  the  collection  of  the  Natural  History  Museum. 
It  was  labelled  "  copal,"  and,  I  suppose,  had  been  chemi- 
cally ascertained  to  be  that  resin  and  not  "  amber,"  or, 
to  use  the  correct  name,  "  succinite."  How  either  of 
these  pieces  got  into  the  North  Sea  it  is  difficult  to  say. 
Though  the  "copal"  of  commerce  is  obtained  from  the 
West  Coast  of  Africa,  it  may  occur  (though  I  have  not 
heard  that  it  does)  associated  with  true  amber  in  Prussia. 
A  fossilized  resin  very  similar  to  copal  is  found  in  the 
London  clay  at  Highgate  and  elsewhere  near  London, 
and  is  called  "  copalite."  It  is  possible,  though  not 
probable,  that  the  bits  of  amber  found  on  our  East  Coast 
beaches  are  derived  from  Tertiary  beds,  now  broken  up 
and  submerged  in  the  North  Sea,  and  do  not  travel  to 
us  all  the  way  from  the  Baltic. 


CHAPTER    X 
SEA-WORMS  AND  SEA-ANEMONES 

LET  us  now  leave  the  beach-pebbles  and  go  down 
on  to  the  rocks  at  low  tide  in  order  to  see  some 
of  the  living  curiosities  of  the  seashore.  There  are 
some  seaside  resorts  where,  when  the  tide  goes  down, 
nothing  is  exposed  but  a  vast  acreage  of  smooth  sand, 
and  here  the  naturalist  must  content  himself  with  such 
spoils  as  may  be  procured  by  the  aid  of  a  shrimping-net 
and  a  spade.  Wading  in  the  shallow  water  and  using 
his  net,  he  will  catch,  not  only  the  true  "  brown  shrimp," 
but  other  shrimp-like  creatures,  known  as  "  Crustacea  " — 
a  group  which  includes  also  the  lobsters,  hermit-crabs, 
true  crabs,  and  sand-hoppers,  as  well  as  an  immense 
variety  of  almost  microscopic  water-fleas. 

He  will  also  probably  catch  some  of  the  stiff,  queer 
little  "  pipe-fish,"  which  are  closely  related  to  the  little 
creatures  known  as  "  sea-horses."  Pipe-fish  are  very 
sluggish  in  movement,  almost  immobile,  whilst  the 
"  sea-horse  "  or  hippocampus — only  to  be  taken  by  the 
dredge  amongst  corallines  in  deep  water  on  rocky 
bottoms  (as,  for  instance,  in  the  Channel  Islands) — goes 
so  far  as  to  curl  his  tail,  like  a  South  American  monkey, 
round  a  stem  of  weed  and  sit  thus  upright  amidst  the 
vegetation.  Even  when  disturbed  he  merely  swims  very 
slowly  and  with  much  dignity  in  the  same  upright 

77 


78  DIVERSIONS  OF  A   NATURALIST 

position,  gently  propelled  by  the  undulating  vibratory 
movement  of  his  small  dorsal  fin.  The  male  in  both 
pipe-fish  and  sea-horses  is  provided  with  a  sac-like 
structure  on  the  ventral  surface  in  which  he  carries  the 
eggs  laid  by  the  female  until  they  are  hatched. 


a. 


FIG.  4. — British  Marine  Worms  or  Chastopods. 

a,  Arenicola  piscatorum.     Lug-worm  largely  used  for  bait  by  sea-fishermen. 

It  burrows  in  sea-sand  and  clay  as  the  earth-worm  does  in  soil.  Half 
the  natural  size,  linear. 

b,  Nephthys  margaritacea,  actively  swimming.    It  also  burrows  in  the  sea- 

sand.     Natural  size. 

c,  Eunice  sanguinea,  a  very  handsome  marine  worm  (often  used  for  bait) 

which  lives  in  clefts  in  the  submarine  rocks  and  also  swims  actively. 
The  numerous  filaments  on  the  sides  of  the  ringed  body  are  the  gills  of  a 
rich  blood-colour.  The  figure  is  one-third  of  the  natural  size,  linear. 

The  shrimper  will  probably  catch  also  some  very 
young  fish  fry — including  young  flat-fish  about  2  inches 
long.  If  he  explores  the  exposed  surface  of  sand  near 
the  low-tide  limit,  he  will  find  a  variety  of  indications  of 
burrowing  animals  hidden  beneath.  Little  coiled  masses 
like  the  "  castings  "  of  earth-worms  are  very  abundant  in 
places,  and  are  produced  by  the  fisherman's  sand-worm, 


SEA-WORMS  AND  SEA-ANEMONES  79 

or  "  lug- worm  "  (Fig.  4,  a).  A  vigorous  digging  to  the 
depth  of  a  foot  or  two  will  reveal  the  worm  itself,  which 
is  worth  bringing  home  in  a  jar  of  sea-water  in  order  to 
see  the  beautiful  tufts  of  branched  gills  on  the  sides  of 
the  body,  which  expand  and  contract  with  the  flow  of 
bright  red  blood  showing  through  their  delicate  walls. 
Other  sand-worms,  from  2  to  6  inches  long,  will  at 
the  same  time  be  turned  up, — worms  which  have  some 
hundred  or  more  pairs  of  vibrating  legs,  or  paddles, 
arranged  down  the  sides  of  the  body,  and  swim  with  a 
most  graceful,  serpentine  curving  of  the  mobile  body 
(Fig.  4,  b).  These  sea-worms  are  but  little  known  to  most 
people,  although  they  are  amongst  the  most  beautifully 
coloured  and  graceful  of  marine  animals.  Hundreds  of 
different  kinds  have  been  distinguished  and  described 
and  pictured  in  their  natural  colours.  Each  leg  is 
provided  with  a  bundle  of  bristles  of  remarkable  shapes, 
resembling,  when  seen  under  a  microscope,  the  serrated 
spears  of  South  Sea  Islanders  and  mediaeval  warriors. 
These  worms  usually  have  (like  the  common  earth-worm) 
red  blood  and  delicate  networks  of  blood-vessels  and  gills 
(Fig.  4,  c),  whilst  the  head  is  often  provided  with  eyes  and 
feelers.  They  possess  a  brain  and  a  nerve-cord  like  our 
spinal  cord,  and  from  the  mouth  many  of  them  can 
suddenly  protrude  an  unexpected  muscular  proboscis 
armed  with  sharp,  horny  jaws,  the  bite  of  which  is  not  to 
be  despised.  These  "  bristle-worms,"  or  "  chaetopods,"  as 
they  are  termed  by  zoologists,  are  well  worth  bringing 
home  and  observing  in  a  shallow  basin  holding  some 
clean  sea-water. 

At  many  spots  on  our  coast  (e.g.  Sandown,  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  the  Channel  Islands)  rapid  digging 
in  the  sand  at  the  lowest  tides  will  result  in  the  capture 
of  sand-eels,  a  bigger  and  a  smaller  kind,  from  i  foot  to 


8o  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

6  inches  in  length.  These  are  eel-shaped,  silvery  fish,  which 
swim  near  the  shore,  but  burrow  into  the  soft  sand  as 
the  tide  recedes.  They  are  excellent  eating.  We  used 
at  Sandown  to  make  up  a  party  of  young  people  to  dig 
the  smaller  "  sand-eels,"  or  "  sand-launce."  The  agility 
and  rapid  disappearance  of  the  burrowing  fish  into  the 
sand  when  one  thought  one  had  safely  dug  them  out, 
rendered  the  pursuit  difficult  and  exciting.  Then  a 
wood  fire  on  the  beach,  a  frying-pan,  fat,  flour,  and  salt 
were  brought  into  operation,  and  the 
sand-eels  were  cooked  to  perfection 
and  eaten. 


Some  of  the  marks  or  small  heaps 
of  sand  on  the  flats  exposed  at  low 
tide  are  characteristic  of  certain  shell- 
fish. The  "razor-fish"  (Fig.  1 9,b) — a 

very  much  elongated  clam,  or  mussel, 
FIG.  5.— The  shell  of  the  '  °  ' 

Heart-urchin  (Spatan-  wlth  astonishing  powers  of  rapid 
gus  purpureus)  with  burrowing— leaves  a  hole  on  the 
its  spines  rubbed  off.  surface  like  a  keyhole,  about  an  inch 

One-fourth  the  actual      i  TJ_  i  i 

diameter.  long'       !t     Can     be     du&     UP     bY     an 

energetic  spadesman,  but  a  spoonful 
of  common  salt  poured  over  the  opening  of  its  burrow 
will  cause  it  to  suddenly  shoot  out  on  to  the  surface, 
when  it  may  be  picked  up,  and  the  hunter  spared 
any  violent  exertion.  The  curious  heart-urchin  (Fig.  5), 
as  fragile  as  an  egg-shell,  and  covered  with  long, 
closely-set  spines  like  a  brush,  is  often  to  be  found 
burrowing  in  the  sand,  as  well  as  the  transparent, 
pink-coloured  worm  known  as  Synapta,  in  the  skin  of 
which  are  set  thousands  of  minute  calcareous  anchors 
hinged  to  little  sculptured  plates.  These  burrowers 
swallow  the  sand  and  extract  nutriment  from  stray 
organic  particles  mixed  in  it. 


SEA- WORMS  AND  SEA- ANEMONES  81 

The  mere  sand-flat  of  the  low  tide  is  not  a  bad 
hunting  ground  ;  but  the  rock  pools,  often  exposed  when 
the  tide  is  out,  and  the  fissures  in  the  rocks  and  the 
under  surfaces  of  slabs  of  rock  revealed  by  turning  them 
over — are  the  greatest  sources  of  varied  delight  to  the 
sea-shore  naturalist.  It  is  well  to  take  a  man  with  you 
on  to  these  rocks  to  carry  your  collecting  bottles  and 
cans,  and  to  turn  over  for  you  the  larger  slabs  of  loose 
stone,  weighing  as  much  as  a  couple  of  hundredweight. 
The  most  striking  and  beautiful  objects  in  these  rock 
pools  are  the  sea-anemones  (Fig.  6  and  Frontispiece). 
They  present  themselves  as  disk-like  flowers  from  I  to  5 
inches  in  diameter,  with  narrow-pointed  petals  of  every 
variety  of  colour,  set  in  a  circle  around  a  coloured  centre. 
The  petals  are  really  hollow  tentacles  distended  with  sea- 
water,  and  when  anything  falls  on  to  them  or  touches 
them  they  contract  and  draw  together  towards  the  centre. 
The  centre  has  a  transverse  opening  in  it  which  is  the 
mouth,  and  leads  into  a  large,  soft-walled  stomach,  separ- 
ated by  its  own  wall  from  a  second  spacious  cavity  lying 
between  that  wall  and  the  body  wall,  and  sending  a 
prolongation  into  each  tentacle.  The  stomach  opens 
freely  at  its  deep  end  into  this  second  "surrounding" 
chamber,  which  is  divided  by  radiating  cross  walls  into 
smaller  partitions,  one  corresponding  to  each  tentacle. 
The  nourishing  results  of  digestion,  and  not  the  food  it- 
self, pass  from  the  stomach  into  the  subdivided  or  "sep- 
tate" second  chamber.  There  is  thus  only  one  cavity 
in  the  animal,  separable  into  a  central  and  a  surrounding 
portion. 

In  this  respect — in  having  only  one  body  cavity — 

sea-anemones  and  the  coral-polyps  and  the  jelly-fishes 

and  the  tiny  freshwater  polyp  or  hydra,  and  the  marine 

compound    branching    polyps    like    it — agree   with   one 

6 


82  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

another  and  differ  from  the  vast  majority  of  animals, 
such  as  worms,  sea-urchins,  star-fishes,  whelks,  mussels, 
crustaceans,  insects,  spiders  and  vertebrates  (which  last 
include  fish,  reptiles,  birds,  and  mammals).  These  all 
have  a  second  chamber,  or  body  cavity,  quite  shut  off 
from  the  digestive  cavity  and  from  the  direct  access  of 
water  and  food  particles.  This  second  distinct  chamber 
is  filled  with  an  animal  fluid,  the  lymph,  and  is  called 
the  "  Ccelom"  (a  Greek  word  meaning  a  cavity).  These 
higher  animals,  which  possess  a  ccelom  as  well  as  a  gut, 
or  digestive  cavity,  are  called  "  Ccelomata,"  or  "  Coelo- 
moccela,"  in  consequence ;  whilst  the  sea-anemones, 
polyps,  and  jelly-fish  form  a  lower  grade  of  animals 
devoid  of  ccelom,  but  having  the  one  cavity,  or  gut, 
continued  into  all  parts  of  the  body.  Hence  they  are 
called  "  Ccelentera,"  or  "  Enteroccela,"  words  which  mean 
that  the  cavity  of  their  bodies  (Greek  ccel)  is  made  by 
an  extension  of  the  gut,  or  digestive  cavity  (Greek 
enterori).  The  higher  grade  of  animals — -the  Ccelo- 
moccela — very  usually  have  a  vascular  system,  or 
blood-vessels  and  blood,  as  well  as  a  ccelom  and  lymph, 
and  quite  independent  of  it ;  also  some  kind  of  kidneys, 
or  renal  excretory  tubes.  Neither  of  these  are  possessed 
by  the  sea-anemones  and  their  allies — the  Enteroccela — 
but  they  have,  like  higher  animals,  a  nervous  system  and 
also  large  ovaries  and  spermaries  on  the  walls  of  their 
single  body  cavity,  which  produce  their  reproductive 
germs.  These  pass  to  the  exterior,  usually  through  the 
mouth,  but  sometimes  by  rupture  of  the  body  wall. 

All  "  one-cavity  "  animals,  the  Enteroccela  or  Ccelen- 
tera, produce  peculiar  coiled-up  threads  in  their  skin  in 
great  quantity — many  thousands — often  upon  special 
warts  or  knobs.  These  coiled-up  threads  lie  each  in  a 
microscopic  sac ;  they  are  very  delicate  and  minute 


SEA-WORMS  AND  SEA-ANEMONES  83 

and  carry  a  virulent  poison,  so  that  they  are  "  stinging  " 
threads.  Excitement  of  the  animal,  or  mere  contact, 
causes  the  microscopic  sac  to  burst,  and  the  thread 
to  be  violently  ejected.  The  sea-anemones,  jelly-fish, 
and  polyps  feed  on  fresh  living  animals,  small  fish, 
shrimps,  etc.,  and  catch  their  prey  by  the  use  of  these 
poisonous  threads.  Some  jelly-fish  have  them  big 
enough  to  act  upon  the  human  skin,  and  bathers  are 
often  badly  stung  by  them.  The  commonest  jelly-fish 
do  not  sting,  but  where  they  occur  a  few  of  the  stinging 
sort  are  likely  to  occur  also.  Even  some  sea-anemones 
can  sting  one's  hand  with  these  stinging  threads.  One 
sea-anemone  (known  as  "  Cerianthus  "),  occasionally  taken 
in  British  waters,  makes  for  itself  a  leathery  tube  by 
the  felting  of  its  stinging  threads,  and  lines  its  long 
burrow  in  the  sand  below  tidal  exposure  in  this  way. 

The  sea-anemones  are  very  hardy,  and  they  are 
wonderfully  varied  and  abundant  on  our  coasts.  Some 
sixty  years  ago  a  great  naturalist,  who  loved  the  sea- 
shore and  its  rock-pools  enthusiastically,  Mr.  Philip 
Henry  Gosse,  father  of  Mr.  Edmund  ,Gosse,  the  dis- 
tinguished man  of  letters,  described  our  British  sea- 
anemones,  and  gave  beautiful  coloured  pictures  of  them. 
One  of  these  I  have  taken  for  the  frontispiece  of  this 
volume,  and  some  of  the  outline  figures  of  marine 
animals  in  these  chapters  are  borrowed  from  a  marvel- 
ously  complete  and  valuable  little  book  by  him — now 
long  out  of  print — entitled  "  Marine  Zoology."  His  books 
— of  high  scientific  value — and  his  example,  made  sea- 
anemones  "  fashionable."  London  ladies  kept  marine 
aquariums  in  their  drawing-rooms  stocked  with  these 
beautiful  flowers  of  the  sea.  They  were  exhibited  in 
quantity  at  the  Zoological  Gardens  in  Regent's  Park, 
and  it  is  by  no  means  a  creditable  thing  to  our  London 


84  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

zoologists  that  neither  these  nor  other  marine  creatures 
are  now  to  be  seen  there.  At  a  later  date  public 
marine  aquaria  were  started  with  success  in  many 
seaside  towns, — Brighton,  Scarborough,  Southport,  etc. — 
and  a  very  fine  one  was  organized  in  Westminster  and 
another  at  the  Crystal  Palace.  It  is  an  interesting  and 
important  fact,  bearing  on  the  psychology  of  the  British 
people,  that  most  of  these  charming  exhibitions  of 
strange  and  beautiful  creatures  from  the  depths  of  the 
sea  were  very  soon  neglected  and  mismanaged  by  their 
proprietors ;  the  tanks  were  emptied  or  filled  with  river 
water,  and  the  halls  in  which  they  were  placed  were 
re-arranged  for  the  exhibitions  of  athletes,  acrobats, 
comic  singers,  and  pretty  dancers.  These  exhibitions 
are  often  full  of  human  interest  and  beauty — but  I 
regret  the  complete  disappearance  of  the  fishes  and 
strange  submarine  animals.  I  have  some  hope  that 
before  long  we  may,  at  any  rate  in  the  gardens  in 
the  Regent's  Park,  see  really  fine  marine  and  fresh- 
water aquaria  established,  more  beautiful  and  varied  in 
their  contents  than  those  of  earlier  days. 

There  are  four  kinds  of  sea-anemones  which  are 
abundant  on  our  coast.  They  adhere  by  a  disk-like 
base  to  the  rocks  and  large  stones,  and  have  the  power 
of  swelling  themselves  out  with  sea-water  (as  have  many 
soft-bodied  creatures  of  this  kind),  with  all  their  tentacles 
expanded.  They  have,  in  that  condition,  the  shape  of 
small  "  Martello  "  towers,  with  their  adhesive  disk  below 
and  the  mouth-bearing  platform  above,  fringed  by 
tapering  fingers ;  and  they  can,  on  the  other  hand, 
shrink  to  a  fifth  part  of  their  expanded  volume,  drawing 
in  and  concealing  their  tentacles,  which  are  in  some 
kinds  perforated  at  the  tip.  One  common  on  the  rocks 
at  Shanklin  and  other  parts  of  our  South  Coast,  but 


SEA-WORMS  AND  SEA-ANEMONES 


FIG.  6. — British  Sea- Anemones. 

a,  Sagartia  bellis,    the    daisy    anemone,    viewed    from    above   when   fully 

expanded. 

b,  Bunodes  crassicornis,  half  expanded  ;  side  view. 

c,  Anthea  cereus.     The  tentacles  are  pale  apple-green  in  colour,  tipped  with 

mauve,  and  cannot  be  completely  retracted. 

d,  Actinia  mesembryanthemum.    The  disk  of  tentacles  is  completely  retracted. 

This  is  the  commonest  sea-anemone  on  our  South  Coast,  and  is  usually 
maroon  colour,  but  often  is  spotted  like  a  strawberry. 


86  DIVERSIONS   OF  A   NATURALIST 

not  on  the  East  Coast,  has  very  abundant,  long,  pale 
green  tentacles,  which  are  tipped  with  a  brilliant  peach 
colour,  and  it  is  peculiar  in  not  being  able  to  retract  or 
conceal  this  beautiful  crown  of  snake-like  locks,  remind- 
ing one  of  the  Gorgon  Medusa.  It  is  known  as  Anthea 
cereus  (Fig.  6,  c).  Many  of  them  are  known  by  the 
name  "  Actinia,"  and  the  commonest  of  all  (Fig.  6,  d) 
is  called  "  Actinia  mesembryanthemum,"  because  of  its 
resemblance  to  a  fleshy-leaved  flower  of  that  name 
which  grows  on  garden  rockeries — sometimes  called  the 
"  ice-plant."  This  one  is  of  a  deep  maroon  colour,  rarely 
more  than  an  inch  and  a  half  across  the  disk.  The 
adhesive  disk  is  often  edged  with  bright  blue,  and  small 
spherical  tentacles,  of  a  bright  blue  colour,  are  set  at 
intervals  outside  the  fringe  of  longer  red  ones.  This 
anemone  lives  wonderfully  well  in  a  small  glass  basin 
or  in  an  aquarium  holding  a  gallon  of  sea-water,  which 
is  kept  duly  aerated  by  squirting  it  daily.  One  lived 
in  Edinburgh  for  more  than  fifty  years,  in  the  possession 
first  of  Sir  John  Dalyell,  and  then  of  Mr.  Peach.  She  was 
known  as  "  Granny,"  and  produced  many  hundreds  of 
young  in  the  course  of  years.  This  species  is  viviparous, 
the  young  issuing  from  the  parent's  mouth  as  tiny  fully- 
formed  sea-anemones,  which  immediately  fix  themselves 
by  their  disks  to  the  glass  wall  of  their  habitation. 
Anemones  kept  thus  in  small  aquaria  have  to  be 
carefully  fed ;  bits  of  the  sea  mussel  (of  course,  un- 
cooked) are  the  best  food  for  them.  This  and  many 
other  kinds  are  not  absolutely  stationary,  but  can  very 
slowly  crawl  by  means  of  muscular  movements  of  the 
adhesive  disk.  There  are  kinds  of  sea-anemones  known 
which  spend  their  lives  floating  in  the  ocean  ;  they  are  thin 
and  flat.  Others  adhere  to  the  shells  of  hermit  crabs  and 
even  to  the  big  claws  of  some  crabs,  and  profit  by  the 
"  crumbs  "  of  food  let  fall  by  the  nippers  of  their  host. 


SEA-WORMS  AND  SEA-ANEMONES  87 

A  very  handsome  and  large  sea-anemone  is  common 
on  the  East  Coast,  and  is  known  as  "  crassicornis "  (its 
generic  name  is  Bunodes).  When  distended  it  measures 
as  much  as  4  inches  across  (Fig.  6,  b).  I  have  one 
at  this  moment  before  me,  expanded  in  a  bowl  of  sea- 
water.  The  tentacles  are  pale  green  or  grey,  banded 
with  deep  red,  and  the  body  is  blotched  with  irregular 
patches  of  red,  green,  and  orange.  It  attaches  fine 
pebbles  and  bits  of  shell  to  the  surface  of  the  body. 


CHAPTER    XI 
CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH 

A  VERY  beautiful  kind  of  sea-anemone  (common  at 
Felixstowe)  is  the  Daisy  or  Sagartia  troglodytes, 
(Fig.  6,  a),  which  has  a  very  long  body  attached  to  a 
rock  or  stone  far  below  the  sandy  floor  of  the  pool,  on 
the  level  of  which  it  expands  its  thin,  long,  ray-like 
tentacles,  coloured  dark  brown  and  white,  and  sometimes 
orange-yellow.  As  soon  as  you  touch  it  it  disappears 
into  the  sand,  and  is  very  difficult  to  dig  out.  The 
most  beautifully  coloured  of  all  sea-anemones  are  the 
little  Corynactids  (half  an  inch  across),  which  you  may 
find  dotted  about  like  jewels,  each  composed  of  emerald, 
ruby,  topaz,  and  creamy  pink  and  lilac,  on  the  under 
surface  of  slabs  of  rock  at  very  low  tide  in  the 
Channel  Islands.  One  of  the  most  puzzling  facts  in 
natural  history  is  that  these  lovely  little  things  live 
in  the  dark.  No  eye,  even  of  fish  or  crab,  has  ever 
seen  what  you  see  when  you  turn  over  that  stone.  It 
is  a  simple  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  poet 
Gray's  statement,  that  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 
is  concealed  in  the  dark,  unfathomed  depths  of  ocean  ! 
A  splendid  anemone  is  the  Weymouth  Dianthus  (see 
the  frontispiece  of  this  volume),  so  named  because  it  is 
dredged  up  in  Weymouth  Bay.  It  is  often  six  inches 
long,  and  has  its  very  numerous,  small  tentacles  arranged 
in  lobes,  or  tufts,  around  the  mouth.  It  is  either  of  a 


CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH  89 

uniform  bright  salmon-yellow  colour  or  pure  white. 
When  kept  in  an  aquarium  it  fixes  itself  by  its  disk 
on  the  glass  wall,  and  often,  as  it  slowly  moves,  allows 
pieces  of  the  disk  to  become  torn  off  and  remain  sticking 
to  the  glass.  These  detached  pieces  develop  tentacles 
and  a  mouth,  and  grow  to  be  small  and  ultimately  full- 
sized  Weymouth  anemones. 

If  the  disk  were  spread  out  and  gave  rise  to  little 
anemones  without  tearing — so  that  they  remained  in 
continuity  with  the  parent — we  should  get  a  composite 
or  compound  animal,  made  up  of  many  anemones,  all 
connected  at  the  base.  This  actually  happens  in  a 
whole  group  of  polyps  resembling  the  sea-anemones. 
They  grow  into  "  stocks,"  "  tree-like  "  or  "  encrusting  " 
masses,  consisting  of  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of 
individuals,  each  with  its  mouth  and  tentacles,  but  with 
their  inner  cavities  and  bases  united.  These  are  the 
"  coral  polyps,"  or  "  coral-insects  "  of  old  writers,  of  so 
many  varied  kinds.  One  further  feature  of  great  import- 
ance in  a  "  coral  "  is  the  production  of  a  hard  deposit  of 
calcite,  or  limestone,  which  is  thrown  down  by  the  sur- 
face of  the  adhesive  disk,  and  is  also  formed  in  deep, 
radiating  "  pockets,"  pushed  in  to  the  soft  animal  from 
the  disk.  The  hard  deposit  of  calcite  is  continuous 
throughout  the  "  stock,"  or  "  tree,"  and  when  the  soft  sea- 
anemone-like  animals  die,  the  hard,  white  matter  is  left, 
and  is  called  "  coral."  Very  commonly  this  white  coral 
shows  star-like  cups  on  its  surface,  which  correspond  to 
the  lower  ends  or  disks  of  the  soft  sea-anemone-like 
creatures  which  deposited  the  hard  coral.  In  a  less 
common  group  (represented  commonly  on  our  coast  by 
the  so-called  "  Dead  men's  fingers "  found  growing  on 
the  overhanging  edges  of  low-tide  rocks)  the  hard  coral 
material  does  not  form  cups  for  the  minute  sea-anemones 


90  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

which  secrete  it,  but  takes  the  form  of  a  supporting 
central  or  axial  rod  (sea-pens),  or  branched  tree  (sea- 
bushes),  upon  which  the  fleshy  mass  of  polyps  are 
tightly  set.  This  is  the  case  with  the  precious  red  and 
pink  coral  of  the  Mediterranean  (which  is  now  being 
"  undersold  "  actually  in  the  Mediterranean  markets  by 
a  similar  red  coral  from  Japan,  usually  offered  as  the 
genuine  article,  which  it  is  not !). 

On  the  British  coast  you  do  not,  as  a  rule,  find 
coral-forming  polyps.  A  small  kind,  consisting  of  two 
or  three  yellow  and  orange-red  anemone-polyps  united 
and  producing  a  small  group  of  hard  calcite  cups 
(Caryophyllia  and  Balanophyllia)  is  not  uncommon  at 
Plymouth  at  a  few  fathoms  depth.  But  you  have  to  go 
to  the  Norwegian  fiords  or  else  far  out  to  sea  where  you 
have  300  fathoms  of  sea-water  in  order  to  get  really 
luxuriant  white  corals — the  beautiful  Lophohelia  (Fig.  3, 
p.  9),  which  I  used  to  dredge  in  the  Nord  Fiord  near 
Stavanger,  as  branching,  shrub-like  masses  of  a  foot  cube 
in  area,  each  white  marble  cup  standing  out  from  the 
stem,  an  inch  long  and  two-thirds  of  an  inch  across,  and 
the  stems  giving  support  to  a  whole  host  of  clinging 
growths  (among  them  Rhabdopleura !)  and  sheltering 
wonderful  deep-water  worms  and  starfish. 

But  these,  beautiful  as  they  are,  are  nothing,  so  far 
as  mass  and  dominating  vigour  of  growth  are  concerned, 
in  comparison  with  the  reef-building  corals  of  the  warm 
seas  of  the  tropics.  There  these  lime-secreting  con- 
glomerated sea-anemones  separate  annually  hundreds  of 
tons  of  solid  calcite  per  square  mile  of  sea  bottom  from 
the  sea-water,  and  build  up  reefs,  islands,  and  huge 
cliffs  of  coral  rock.  They  get  the  calcite — as  do 
calcareous  seaweeds  and  shell-making  clams,  oysters, 


CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH  91 

whelks,  and  microscopic  chalk -makers — from  the  sea — 
the  water  of  the  sea  which  always  has  it  ready  in  solution 
for  their  use.  And  the  sea  gets  it  from  the  rivers  and 
streams  which  wear  away  and  dissolve  the  old  limestone 
deposits  now  raised  into  mountain  chains,  as  well  as  by 
itself  dissolving  again  in  due  course  what  living  creatures 
have  so  carefully  separated  from  it.  Sea  water  or  fresh 
water  with  a  little  carbonic  acid  gas  dissolved  in  it 
dissolves  limestone  and  chalk — it  becomes  what  we  call 
"  hard."  Neutralize  the  dissolved  carbonic  acid  (as  is 
done  in  the  well-known  Clark's  process  for  softening 
water),  and  down  falls  the  dissolved  calcite  as  a  fine 
white  sediment.  These  alternating  processes  of  solution 
and  "  precipitation  "  are  always  going  on  in  the  waters 
of  the  earth  and  sea. 

The  name  "  jelly-fish  "  has  reference  to  the  colourless, 
transparent,  soft,  and  jelly-like  substance  of  the  bodies  of 
the  animals  to  which  it  is  applied.  There  are  a  number 
of  marine  animals,  besides  the  common  jelly-fish,  belong- 
ing to  different  classes,  which  are  glass-like  in  trans- 
parency and  colourless — so  as  to  be  nearly  or  quite 
invisible  in  clear  water,  and  some,  too,  occur  in  fresh 
waters  (larvae  of  gnats,  notably  of  the  plume-horned  gnat 
Corethra).  The  transparency  of  these  animals  serves 
them  in  two  different  ways — some  are  enabled  by  it  to 
escape  from  predatory  enemies  ;  others,  on  the  contrary, 
are  enabled  to  approach  their  own  prey  without  being 
observed.  The  latter  was  obviously  the  case  with  the 
little  fresh-water  jelly-fish  which  appeared  in  great 
abundance  some  years  ago  in  the  lily  tank  in  Regent's 
Park.  The  water  was  full  of  small  water-fleas  (minute 
Crustacea),  and  the  little  jelly-fish,  if  removed  from  the 
tank  and  placed  in  a  tall  glass  jar  filled  with  the  tank 
water,  spent  its  whole  time  in  swimming  upwards  to  the 


92  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

surface  by  the  alternate  contraction  and  expansion  of  its 
disk-like  body,  and  then  dropping  gently  through  the 
full  length  of  the  jar  to  the  bottom,  when  it  would 
again  mount.  On  the  downward  journey — owing  to  its 
transparency — it  would  encounter  unsuspecting,  jerkily- 
moving  water-fleas,  unwarned  by  any  shadow  cast  by 
the  impending  glass-like  monster  of  half  an  inch  in 
breadth  slowly  approaching  from  above  ;  and  as  soon  as 
they  touched  it  they  were  paralysed  (by  microscopic 
poison-threads  like  those  of  the  sea-anemones),  and  were 
grasped  and  swallowed  by  the  mobile  transparent 
proboscis  (like  that  of  an  elephant,  though  certainly 
smaller,  and  having  the  mouth  opening  at  its  end, 
instead  of  a  nostril),  which  hangs  from  the  centre  of  the 
disk-like  jelly-fish.1 

There  are  some  glass-like  transparent  creatures, 
including  some  small  fishes,  which  live  at  500  fathoms 
depth  and  a  good  deal  deeper  on  the  sea  bottom.  We 
know  that  the  sun's  light  does  not  penetrate  below  200 
fathoms,  so  that  one  is  led  to  ask — What  is  the  good  of 
being  transparent  if  you  live  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
at  a  greater  depth  than  this  ?  There  is  also  a  very 
beautiful  prawn,  which  I  dredged  in  Norway  in  200 
fathoms,  which  looks  like  a  solid  piece  of  clearest, 
colourless  glass.  And  then  there  are  some  very  beauti- 
ful little  stalked  creatures  (called  Clavellina),  fixed  to 
the  under-side  of  rocks  in  the  tidal  zone,  which  are 
absolutely  like  drops  of  solid  glass  an  inch  long.  One 
cannot  easily  imagine  how  colourless  transparency  can 
be  of  "  life-saving  value  "  to  these  varied  inhabitants  of 
the  dark  places  of  the  sea  bottom — any  more  than  we 

1  See  "  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair  "  (First  Series,  1910),  p.  60,  for 
a  further  account  and  figure  of  the  freshwater  jelly-fish. 


CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH  93 

can  assign  any  life-saving  value  to  the  brilliant,  gem- 
like  colouring  of  some  of  the  sea-anemones  which  live  in 
the  dark  on  the  under-surface  of  rocks. 

The  most  probable  view  of  the  matter  is  that 
neither  the  colourless  transparency  of  the  one  set  nor 
the  brilliant  colouring  of  the  other  has  any  value ;  it 
just  happens  to  be  so,  and  is  not  harmful.  So,  for 
instance,  some  crystals  are  colourless,  some  blue  or 
green  or  yellow  or  red,  without  any  advantage  to  them  ! 
On  the  other  hand,  we  know  that  a  large  number  of 
the  animals  which  live  in  the  dark  unfathomed  depths 
themselves  produce  light,  that  is  to  say,  are  phosphor- 
escent, and  it  seems  probable  that  at  great  depths,  though 
there  is  no  sunlight,  the  sea  bottom  is  illuminated — we 
can  only  vaguely  guess  to  what  degree — by  the  strange 
living  lanterns — fish,  crustaceans,  worms,  and  even  micro- 
scopic creatures — which  move  about  in  quest  of  their  food, 
carrying  their  own  searchlight  with  them.  Another  sug- 
gestion is  that  the  eyes  of  these  inhabitants  of  the  dark 
may  be  more  sensitive  than  our  own,  and  even  be  affected 
by  rays  invisible  to  us.  This,  however,  is  not  probable, 
since  whilst  there  are  among  them  some  with  enormous 
eyes,  we  find  that  at  the  greatest  depths  (2  to  4 
miles)  even  the  fishes  have  no  eyes  at  all,  and  at  a 
depth  of  a  mile  there  are  many  shrimp-like  creatures 
in  which  the  eyes  have  been  completely  transformed 
into  peculiar  "  feelers,"  or  otherwise  aborted.  So  that 
we  cannot  suppose  there  is  a  possibility  of  developing 
the  eye  of  the  dwellers  in  deep-sea  darkness  to  a  degree 
of  sensitiveness  greatly  beyond  that  of  terrestrial  animals. 
A  limit  of  obscurity  is  reached  at  which  it  is  of  no  use 
having  an  eye  at  all,  and  eyes  cease  to  have  life-saving 
value,  and  accordingly  are  not  maintained  by  natural 
selection, 


94 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


The  transparency  and  colourlessness  of  marine 
animals  which  float  near  the  surface  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  obviously  useful,  and  to  this  group  our  jelly-fishes 
belong.  Not  only  do  they  escape  observation  by  their 
transparency  and  general  absence  of  colour,  but  some 
actually  have  a  blue  transparent  colouring  which  blends 
with  the  blue  colour  of  the  sea.  Such  are  the  gas- 
holding,  bladder-like  sac  as  large  as  your  fist  called 
the  "  Portuguese  man-of-war,"  and  the  little  sailing 
Velella,  both  of  which  float,  and  even  protrude  above 
the  surface,  so  as  to  catch  the  wind.  Others  are  only 

semi-transparent,  and  others 
are  marked  with  strong  red, 
brown,  or  yellow  streaks. 
Many  of  the  smallest  kinds 
of  jelly-fish  have  eyes  which 
are  bright  red  in  colour. 

The  animals  to  which  the 
name  "  jelly-fishes  "  is  now 
more  or  less  strictly  applied 


FIG.  7. — A  common  British 
Jelly-fish. 


Aurelia   aurita,   usually   as   large      are      /as      that      fine     ZOOlogist 
as  a  breakfast-plate  and  often       .    .   .    A .     ,  N  .      , .     . 

lar  er  Aristotle  knew)  in  their  struc- 

ture   closely    similar    to    the 

sea-anemones,  but  even  simpler.  They  are  called  the 
Medusse  by  naturalists.  Their  disk-like  bodies  are 
largely  formed  by  a  jelly-like  material,  on  the  surface 
of  which  are  stretched  delicate  transparent  skin,  nerves, 
and  delicate  muscles,  whilst  in  the  middle  of  the  disk, 
on  the  surface  which  faces  downwards  as  the  creature 
floats,  is  the  mouth,  leading  into  a  relatively  small 
pouched  cavity  excavated  in  the  jelly,  from  which  a 
delicate  system  of  canals  is  given  off,  and  radiates  in 
the  jelly  of  the  disk.  There  is,  as  in  the  sea-anemones, 
only  one  continuous  cavity.  The  edge  of  the  disk  is 
beset  with  fine,  sensitive  tentacles,  sometimes  many  feet 


CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH  95 

in  length,  and  the  lips  of  the  mouth  are  often  drawn 
out  into  a  sort  of  depending  trunk,  or  into  four  large 
tapering  lobes  or  lips  of  jelly,  which,  with  the  longer 
tentacles,  are  used  for  seizing  prey.  The  commonest 
jelly-fish  on  our  coast — so  common  as  to  be  "  the  "  jelly- 
fish par  excellence — is  often  to  be  seen  left  on  the  sands 
by  the  receding  tide  or  slowly  swimming  in  quiet,  clear 
water  at  the  mouth  of  a  river  in  enormous  numbers. 
It  is  known  as  "  Aurelia "  (Fig.  7).  It  is  as  big  as  a 
cheese-plate,  and  the  four  pouches  connected  with  the 
stomach  are  coloured  pink  or  purple,  and  appear  in  the 
middle  of  the  circular  plate  of  jelly,  like  a  small  Maltese 
cross.  The  reproductive  particles  (germ-cells  and  sperm- 
cells)  are  produced  in  that  coloured  region,  and  escape  by 
the  mouth.  There  is  a  fringe  of  fine,  very  short  tentacles 
round  the  edge  of  the  disk,  and  they,  as  well  as  the  great 
lobes  of  the  mouth,  are  provided  with  innumerable  coiled- 
up  stinging  hairs  or  "  thread-cells,"  similar  to  those  of  the 
sea-anemones,  which  led  Aristotle  to  call  both  groups 
"sea-nettles."  Eight  stalked  eyes  are  set  at  equal  in- 
tervals around  the  disk. 

Usually  accompanying  the  floating  crowd  of  the 
common  and  abundant  Aurelia  are  a  few  specimens 
of  a  very  unpleasant  kind  of  Medusa  of  a  turbid  appear- 
ance, often  called  "  slime  balls "  by  fishermen,  from 
six  inches  to  a  foot  in  diameter.  It  is  known  to 
naturalists  by  the  name  "  Cyanaea  capillata."  The 
tentacles  on  the  edge  of  the  disk  of  this  kind  of  jelly- 
fish are  very  long  and  elastic,  stretching  to  several  feet, 
even  yards,  in  length,  and  are  provided  with  very 
powerful  stinging  hairs.  The  tentacles  not  infrequently 
become  coiled  around  the  body  of  a  bather ;  the  stinging 
hairs  are  shot  out  of  the  little  sacs  in  which  they  are 
rolled  up,  and  the  result  may  be  very  painful  to  the 


96  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

person  stung  in  this  way  and  even  dangerous.     There 
are  two  other  common  large  jelly-fish  on  the  English 

coast,  one  called  "  Chrysaora  " 
(Fig.  8),  with  a  wheel-like 
pattern  of  brown  pigment  on 
the  disk,  and  the  other  with 
the  mouth  lobes  very  large 
and  bound  together  like  a 
column. 

The  common  Aurelia  is 
remarkable  for  the  fact  that 
the  young  which  hatch  from 
its  eggs  attach  themselves  to 
stones  and  rocks  on  the  sea 
bottom,  and  grow  into  little 
white  tube-like  polyps,  about 
half  an  inch  long,  quite  unlike 
their  parent,  with  a  crown  of 
small  tentacles  surrounding 
the  mouth,  whilst  they  are 
fixed  by  the  opposite  end  of 
the  body.  Then  a  very 
curious  thing  happens.  The 
little  polyp  becomes  nipped 
at  intervals  across  its  length, 
so  that  it  looks  like  a  pile  of 
saucers  —  a  dozen  or  more. 
And  then  the  top  saucer 
FIG.  8.— A  common  British  swims  away  as  a  minute 
Jelly-fish.  jelly-fish,  the  next  follows, 

Chrysaora  hysoscella,  usually  twice     an(}     SQ  SQ    thatj    fn    thg 

as  big  as  the  figure. 

course   of  an    hour    or    two, 

the    whole     pile     separates     into    a    number     of   freely 
swimming  young,  each  of  which  gradually  grows  into  a 


CORAL-MAKERS  AND  JELLY-FISH  97 

full-sized  Aurelia.  I  have  only  once  had  the  chance  of 
witnessing  this  beautiful  sight,  and  that  was  many  years 
ago  in  a  tank  at  the  Zoological  Gardens  (they  have  no 
such  tanks  now),  where  the  polyp-like  young  (called 
"  Hydra  tuba  ")  spontaneously  put  in  an  appearance,  and 
proceeded  to  break  up  into  piles  of  little  disks,  which 
separated  and  swam  off  as  one.  watched  them.  The 
French  poet,  Catulle  Mended,  imagined  a  world  where 
the  flowers  flew  about  freely  and  the  butterflies  were 
fixed  to  stalks.  His  fancy  is  to  some  degree  realized 
by  the  swimming  away  of  the  young  jelly-fish  from  their 
stalks.  There  are  a  host  of  very  minute  jelly-fish, 
measuring  when  full  grown  only  half  an  inch  or  less  in 
diameter.  They  originate  as  buds  from  small  branching 
polyps,  one  kind  of  which  is  common  on  oyster-shells, 
and  is  called  "  the  herring-bone  coralline."  The  dried 
skins  of  these  coralline  polyps  (which  are  horny)  are 
often  to  be  picked  up  with  masses  of  seaweed  on  the 
seashore  after  a  storm.  The  little  jelly-fish  are  the  ripe 
individuals  of  the  polyps,  and  produce  eggs  and  sperm 
which  grow  to  be  polyp-trees.  These,  again,  after 
growing  and  branching  as  polyps,  give  rise  to  little 
jelly-fish  here  and  there  on  the  tree,  which  in  most 
kinds  (though  not  in  all)  break  off  and  swim  away 
freely. 


CHAPTER    XII 
SHRIMPS,   CRABS,   AND   BARNACLES 

WE  have  no  word  in  English  to  indicate  the  varied 
crab-and-shrimp-like  creatures  of  salt  and  fresh 
waters  in  the  same  way  as  "  insect "  designates  the  six- 
legged,  usually  winged,  terrestrial  creatures  of  many 
kinds — bettles,  bees,  bugs,  two-winged  flies,  dragon- 
flies,  day-flies,  and  butterflies.  They  are  all  "  insects." 
Naturalists  call  the  aquatic  shrimp-and-crab  creatures 
"  crustaceans."  Perhaps  "  crab "  might  be  used  in  a 
large  sense  to  include  them  all,  together  with  the  true 
crabs,  as  the  Germans  use  their  word,  "  krebs."  The 
shore-crab  is  the  most  familiar  of  all  crustaceans,  in  the 
living,  moving  condition.  Boiled  lobsters,  prawns,  and 
shrimps  are  more  generally  familiar  members  of  the 
class,  but  the  "  undressed  "  living  crab  is  better  known 
to  every  one  who  has  been  on  the  seashore  than  the  live 
lobster,  prawn,  and  shrimp.  Londoners  have  been  heard 
to  express  interest  in  the  curious  blue  variety  of  lobster 
caught  on  the  coast,  not  being  aware  that  the  hot  bath 
which  he  takes  before  he,  too,  is  "  dressed,"  causes  his 
blue  armour  to  change  its  colour  to  a  brilliant  scarlet. 
Occasionally  a  regular  ordinary  lobster  is  caught  in 
which  this  change  has  occurred  during  life  in  the  sea — 
and  there  are  some  enormous  deep-sea  prawns  of  a 
pound  in  weight  which  when  living  have  a  splendid 
crimson  colour.  A  large  series  of"  crustaceans,"  carefully 


SHRIMPS,  CRABS,  AND  BARNACLES          99 

prepared  so  as  to  show  their  natural  colours  in  life,  is 
exhibited  in  the  Natural  History  Museum  in  Cromwell 
Road. 

A  curious  kind  of  prawn  (by  name  Althea  rubra), 
of  fair  size,  is  found  under  "  the  low-tide  rocks  "  in  the 
Channel  Islands,  which  not  only  is  of  a  deep  crimson 
colour,  but  snaps  his  fingers  at  you — or  rather  one  of 
his  fingers — or  claws — when  you  try  to  catch  him,  mak- 
ing a  loud  crack  audible  at  ten  yards  distance.  The 
common  big  prawn,  if  you  see  him  in  a  large  vessel  of 
sea-water  with  the  light  shining  through  him,  appears 
very  brilliantly  marked  with  coloured  bands  and  spots — 
reddish-brown,  blue,  and  yellow — which  are  displayed  on 
a  transparent,  almost  colourless  surface.  Of  course, 
boiling  turns  him  pale  red.  A  common  smaller  species 
of  prawn  when  boiled  is  often  sold  as  "  pink  shrimps," 
and  lately  a  deep-sea  prawn — a  third  species — has  come 
from  the  Norwegian  coast  into  the  London  market. 
There  are  many  kinds  which  are  not  abundant  enough 
to  become  "  marketable."  Prawns  are  at  once  dis- 
tinguished from  the  true  "  brown  shrimp  "  by  having  the 
front  end  of  the  body  drawn  out  into  a  sharp-toothed 
spine,  which  is  absent  in  the  shrimp.  Besides  the 
prawns  (Palaemon  and  Pandalus),  the  shrimp  (Crangon), 
and  the  common  lobster  (Homarus),  you  may  see  in  the 
London  fish  shops  the  large  spiny  lobster  (Palinurus) 
called  "  langouste "  by  the  French,  and  apparently 
preferred  by  them  as  a  table  delicacy  to  the  common 
lobster,  although  it  has  no  claws.  It  used  to  be  called 
"  craw-fish  "  or  "  sea  craw-fish  "  in  London  ;  why,  I  am  un- 
able to  say.  The  name  was  certainly  bad,  as  it  leads  to 
confusion  with  the  cray-fish,  the  fresh-water  lobster  of 
British  and  all  European  rivers  (there  are  many  other  kinds 
of  fresh-water  lobsters  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  as  well 


ioo  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

as  fresh-water  prawns  and  crabs),  whose  English  name  is  a 
curious  corruption  of  the  French  one,  "  ecrevisse  "  (cray- 
vees,  cray-fish).  Another  lobster  of  our  markets  is  the 
little  one  known  as  the  "  Dublin  prawn,"  which  is 
common  enough  on  the  Scotch  and  Norwegian  coasts,  as 
well  as  that  of  Ireland.  Naturalists  distinguish  it  as 
Nephrops  Norvegicus.  The  great  edible  crab  completes 
the  list  of  British  marketable  crustaceans,  but  in  Paris 
I  have  eaten,  as  well  as  at  Barcelona,  a  very  large 
Mediterranean  prawn,  three  times  as  big  as  our  biggest 
Isle  of  Wight  prawns,  but  by  no  means  so  good.  It  is 
called  "  Barcelona  prawn  "  and  "  Langostino  "  ("  Penaeus  " 
by  naturalists).  In  Madrid  I  have  seen  in  the  fish  shops 
and  eaten  yet  another  crustacean — a  very  curious  one — 
namely,  a  long-stalked  rock-barnacle  of  the  kind  known 
to  naturalists  as  Pollicipes. 

That  the  barnacles — ship's  barnacles  (Fig.  10)  and 
with  them  the  little  sea-acorns  (Fig.  1 1 ),  those  terribly 
liard  and  sharp  little  white  "  pimples "  which  cover  the 
rocks  nearly  everywhere  just  below  high-tide  mark,  and 
have  so  cruelly  lacerated  the  hands  and  shins  of  all  of 
us  who  swim  and  have  had  to  return  to  a  rocky  shore 
in  a  lively  sea — should  be  included  with  crabs,  lobsters, 
and  shrimps  as  "  crustaceans "  must  appear  astonishing 
to  every  one  who  hears  it  for  the  first  time.  The  extra- 
ordinarily ignorant,  yet  in  their  own  estimation  learned, 
fishermen  of  the  Scottish  coast  will  tell  you  with  solemn 
assurance  that  the  ubiquitous  encrusting  sea-acorns  are 
the  young  of  the  limpet,  whilst  the  creature  living  inside 
the  shell  of  the  long-stalked  ship's  barnacles  has  for 
ages  been  discoursed  of  by  the  learned  as  one  of  the 
marvels  of  the  sea — nothing  more  or  less  than  a  young 
bird — the  young,  in  fact,  of  a  goose — the  barnacle  goose 
which,  since  it  was  thus  proved  to  be  a  fish  in  origin, 


SHRIMPS,  CRABS,  AND  BA&NACLES        101 

was  allowed  to  be  eaten  by  good  Catholics  on  fast  days ! 
Two  hundred  years  or  more  ago  this  story  was  dis- 
credited by  serious  naturalists,  but  the  barnacles  and  sea- 
acorns  were  thought  (even  by  the  great  Cuvier)  to  be 
of  the  nature  of  oysters,  mussels,  and  clams  (Molluscs), 
because  of  their  possessing  white  hard  shells  in  the  form 
of"  valves  "  and  plates,  which  can  open  and  shut  like  those 
of  mussels.  Their  true  history  and  nature  were  shown 
about  eighty  years  ago  by  a  great  discoverer  of  new 
things  concerning  marine  creatures,  Dr.  Vaughan 
Thompson,  who  was  Army  Medical  Inspector  at  Cork, 
and  studied  these  and  other  animals  found  in  the  waters 
of  Queenstown  Harbour. 

The  crab  class,  or  Crustacea,  have,  like  the  insects, 
centipedes,  spiders,  and  scorpions,  a  body  built  up  of 
successive  rings  or  segments.  The  earth-worms  (as  every 
one  knows)  and  marine  bristle-bearing  worms  also  show 
this  feature  in  the  simplest  and  most  obvious  way.  The 
vertebrates,  with  their  series  of  vertebrae  or  backbone- 
pieces  and  the  body  muscles  attached  ring-wise  to  them, 
show  the  same  condition.  The  marine  worms  have 
a  soft  skin  and  a  pair  of  soft  paddle-like  legs  upon 
each  ring  of  the  body,  often  to  the  number  of  a  hundred 
such  pairs.  But  the  crab  class  and  the  classes  called 
insects,  centipedes,  arachnids,  and  millipedes  are  remark- 
able for  the  hard,  firm  skin,  or  "  cuticle,"  which  is  formed 
on  the  surface  of  their  bodies  and  of  their  legs,  which,  as 
in  the  marine  worms,  are  present — a  pair  to  each  body- 
ring  or  segment — often  along  the  whole  length  of  the 
body  as  in  centipedes.  This  hard  cuticle  is  impreg- 
nated with  lime  in  the  bigger  members  of  the  crab 
class,  such  as  the  lobster.  It  is  not  equally  thick  and 
hard  all  over  the  surface  of  the  lobster,  but  is  separated 
by  narrow  bands  of  thin,  soft  cuticle  into  a  number  of 


102  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

harder  pieces,  thus  rendered  capable  of  being  bent  or 
"  flexed  "  on  one  another.  Thus  the  body  is  jointed  into 
a  series  of  rings,  and  the  legs  are  also  divided  each  into 
several  joints  (as  many  as  seven),  which  gives  them 
flexibility  and  so  usefulness  of  various  kinds.  The 
various  joints  are  "  worked  "  by  powerful  muscles,  which 
are  fixed  internally  to  the  cuticle  and  pass  from  one  hard 
ring  or  segment,  whether  of  body  or  of  leg,  to  a  neighbour- 
ing ring. 

Every  one  knows  the  structure  of  a  lobster's  tail  and 
of  its  legs,  which  can  be  readily  examined  in  illustration 
of  my  statement,  and  the  same  structure  can  be  seen  in 
the  leg  of  a  beetle  or  a  fly.  Naturalists  term  all  this 
series  of  creatures  with  hard-jointed  cuticle,  to  which  the 
muscles  are  attached,  including  the  crab  class,  the  insects, 
centipedes,  spiders,  and  scorpions,  "jointed-leg  owners," 
or  Arthropods.  It  is  easy  to  appreciate  this  characteristic 
difference  which  separates  the  Arthropods  from  other 
animals.  The  sea-worms  differ  from  them,  in  that  they 
have  soft  cuticle,  but  stiffen  and  render  their  paddle-like 
legs  firm  by  squeezing  the  liquid  of  the  body  into  them 
in  the  same  sort  of  way  as  the  sea-anemones  distend 
their  tentacles  with  liquid,  though  in  that  case  the  liquid 
is  sea-water  taken  in  by  the  mouth.  The  Molluscs  also 
distend  their  muscular  lobe,  or  "  foot  "  as  it  is  called,  by 
pressing  the  blood  from  the  rest  of  the  body  into  it,  and 
so  making  it  swell  and  become  stiff,  so  that  the  muscles 
can  work  it ;  when  not  distended  in  that  way  it  is  flaccid. 
The  Vertebrates  (bony  animals)  and  the  star-fishes  have 
again  another  and  peculiar  mechanism.  Their  muscles 
are  attached  to  hard  internal  pieces,  sometimes  cartila- 
ginous but  often  calcareous  or  bony,  which  are  spoken  of 
as  "  the  internal  skeleton."  There  are  thus  three  distinct 
kinds  of  mechanism  in  animals  for  giving  the  necessary 


SHRIMPS,  CRABS,  AND  BARNACLES        103 

resisting  surfaces,  hinged  or  jointed  to  one  another,  and 
made  to  "  play "  one  on  the  other  by  the  alternate 
contraction  and  relaxation  of  the  muscles  attached  to 
them. 

The  Arthropods  differ  among  themselves  in  the 
number  of  body-rings,  the  enlargement  or  dwindling  of 
certain  rings,  and  the  fusion  of  a  larger  or  smaller  number 
of  the  rings  to  form  a  composite  head,  or  a  jointless  mid- 
body  or  hind-body.  The  successive  legs  are  primarily 
and  essentially  like  to  one  another,  and  each  body-ring, 
with  its  pair  of  legs,  is  but  a  repetition  of  its  fellows.  At 
the  same  time,  in  the  different  classes  included  as 
"  Arthropoda  "  a  good  deal  of  difference  has  been  attained 
in  the  structure  of  the  legs,  and  they  have  in  each  class 
a  different  form  and  character  in  successive  regions  of 
the  body,  distinctive  of  the  class,  and  are  sometimes,  but 
not  always,  absent  from  many  of  the  hinder  rings.  All 
these  Arthropods  agree  in  having  a  leg  on  each  side 
immediately  behind  the  mouth — belonging  to  a  body- 
ring,  which  is  fused  with  others  to  form  the  head — very 
specially  shortened,  of  great  strength  and  firmness,  and 
shaped  so  as  to  be  pulled  by  a  powerful  muscle  attached 
to  it,  against  its  fellow  of  the  opposite  side,  which  is 
similarly  pulled.  These  two  stumpy  legs  form  thus  a 
powerful  pair  of  nippers  called  "  the  mandibles."  They 
are  jaws,  although  they  were  in  the  ancestors  of  the 
Arthropods  merely  legs.  These  jaw-legs,  or  leg-jaws,  are 
characteristic  of  all  the  crab  class,  as  well  as  of  the  other 
Arthropods,  but  no  bristle-worm  or  other  animal  has 
them.  The  jaws  of  marine  worms  are  of  a  totally 
different  nature.  So  are  the  jaws  of  snails,  whelks,  and 
cuttle-fish.  Many  of  the  crab  class  have  not  one  only, 
but  several,  pairs  of  legs  following  the  mouth  converted 
into  jaws.  Thus,  if  you  examine  a  big  shore-crab,  or, 


104  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

better,  an  edible  crab,  and  a  lobster,  and  a  large  prawn, 
you  will  find  that  they  all  have  five  pairs  of  legs  con- 
verted into  short  foliaceous  jaws  (hence  called  "  foot- 
jaws  "),  and  overlying  the  first  very  strong  pair,  or 
mandibles. 

Following  these  "  foot-jaws "  you  find  in  a  crab 
or  a  lobster  the  great  nipping  claws  and  the  four  large 
walking  legs — the  same  in  proportion  and  shape  in  crab, 
lobster,  and  prawn,  much  bigger  than  the  foot-jaws.  But 
the  curious  thing  is  that  if  you  set  them  out  and  carefully 
compare  them  (for  they  are  not  simple  jointed  limbs,  but 
each  has  two  or  even  three  diverging  stems  carried  on  a 
basal  joint),  you  will  find  a  strange  and  fascinating 
"  likeness  in  unlikeness,"  or  an  agreement  of  the  parts  of 
which  they  are  built,  and  yet  a  difference  between  all 
of  them. 

The  rings  of  the  body  to  which  the  jaw-legs  and  legs 
are  attached  are  fused  into  one  unjointed  piece.  The 
spine  in  front  of  the  mouth  and  the  support  of  the  eyes 
and  the  feelers  or  "  antennae  "  are  fused  with  that  piece. 
•  It  forms  on  the  back  a  great  shield — often  called  "the 
head  " — which  overhangs  and  is  bent  down  over  the  sides 
of  this  region,  so  as  to  protect  the  gills,  which  you  can 
see  by  cutting  away  the  overhanging  flap. 

Following  on  the  jaw-legs  or  foot-jaws  and  walking- 
legs,  in  the  three  crustaceans  we  are  looking  at,  comes  the 
jointed  tail  or  hind-body,  consisting  of  seven  pieces. 
The  first  five  rings  of  the  tail  have  small  Y-shaped 
legs,  a  pair  to  each  ring.  They  are  called  "  swimmerets," 
whilst  the  sixth  has  legs  of  the  same  shape,  but  very 
large  and  flat.  In  the  middle  between  these  large  flat 
legs  is  the  last  ring,  which  has  no  legs,  but  is  perforated 


SHRIMPS,  CRABS,  AND  BARNACLES        105 

by  the  opening  of  the  intestine.  You  will  see  if  you 
compare  the  crab  and  the  lobster  (or  the  prawn,  which 
is  very  much  like  the  lobster),  that  the  crab  has  the 
so-called  head  (really  head  and  mid-body  combined) 
drawn  out  from  side  to  side,  so  as  to  make  it  much 
wider  than  it  is  long.  And,  moreover,  the  jointed  tail  or 


FIG.  9. — The  larval  or  young  form  of  Crustacea  known 
as  "the  Nauplius."  This  is  the  "  Nauplius  "  of 
a  kind  of  Prawn.  The  three  pairs  of  branched 
limbs  are  well  seen.  Much  magnified. 

hind-body  seems  at  first  sight  to  be  absent  in  the  crab. 
But  if  you  turn  the  crab  (a  dead  one)  on  his  back,  you 
will  find  that  he  has  a  complete  tail,  on  the  whole  like 
that  of  the  lobster,  but  pointed  and  bent  forwards,  and 
closely  packed  under  the  fused  head  and  mid-body  in  a 
groove,  from  which  you  can  raise  it  and  turn  it  back. 

We    have   not    yet    done     with    the     various    forms 


106  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

assumed  by  the  legs  of  our  three  crustaceans — for, 
actually  in  front  of  the  mouth,  there  are  two  pairs  of 
peculiarly  altered  legs.  Originally  in  crab- ancestors,  and 
at  the  present  day  in  the  very  minute  young  stage  of 
growth  called  "  the  Nauplius "  (Fig.  9),  the  mouth  was 
not  behind  these  two  front  pairs.  It  has  sunk  back  as  it 
were,  gradually  moved  so  as  to  leave  the  legs  in  front  of 
it.  As  we  now  see  them  in  the  crab,  lobster,  and  prawn, 
the  two  pairs  of  legs  in  front  of  the  mouth  are  jointed 
filamentous  things — the  feelers  or  antennae — very  long 
in  prawns  and  lobsters,  short  in  crabs.  In  the  ancestors  of 
crabs,  lobsters,  and  prawns  these  feelers  were  undoubtedly 
swimming  legs.  In  the  "  nauplius "  stage  (Fig.  9)  of 
some  prawns,  and  in  many  minute  crustaceans  often  called 
"  water-fleas,"  we  find  these  feelers  not  acting  as  mere 
sensory  organs  of  touch,  but  relatively  strong  and  large, 
with  powerful  muscles,  striking  the  water  and  making  the 
little  creatures  bound  or  jump  through  it  in  jerks. 

It  has  been  discovered  that  in  the  growth  from  the 
egg  of  many  crustaceans  the  young  hatches  out  as  a 
"  nauplius  "  with  only  three  pairs  of  legs.  The  front  two 
pairs  later  gradually  grow  to  be  the  feelers,  the  third  pair 
become  eventually  the  mandibles  or  first  pair  of  jaw-legs. 
These  legs  all  present  themselves  at  first  as  active,  power- 
ful swimming  "  oars,"  beset  with  peculiar  feathery  hairs  and 
not  in  the  shape  which  they  later  acquire.  The  kite-shaped 
nauplius  baby-phase,  smaller  than  a  small  flea,  with  its  three 
pairs  of  violently  jerking  legs,  is  a  very  important  little 
beast.  It  is  the  existence  of  this  young  stage  in  the  growth 
of  barnacles  and  sea-acorns  which  has  demonstrated  that 
they  are  crustaceans,  that  is  to  say,  belong  to  the  crab  class. 
The  fixed  shell-like  barnacles  and  sea-acorns  hatch  from 
their  eggs  each  as  a  perfect  little  "  nauplius,"  like  that 
drawn  in  Fig.  9.  They  swim  about  with  jerking  move- 


SHRIMPS,  CRABS,  AND  BARNACLES        107 

ments  caused  by  the  strokes  of  the  two  front  legs  and  of 
the  pair  which  will  become  the  mandibles.  Their  limbs 
have  the  special  form  and  are  beset  with  the  feather-like 
hairs,  and  the  whole  creature  has  the  kite-like  shape — 
characteristic  of  the  nauplius  young  of  other  Crustacea. 
They  are  indeed  indistinguishable  from  those  young. 
Whilst  it  was  the  Army  doctor,  Vaughan  Thompson, 
who  discovered  that  barnacles  are  strangely  altered 
"  shrimps,"  it  was  Darwin  who  made  one  of  the  most 
interesting  discoveries  about  them — a  discovery  of  which 
he  was  always,  and  rightly,  very  proud — as  I  will  explain 
in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    XIII 
BARNACLES   AND   OTHER   CRUSTACEANS 

THE  ship's  barnacle  looks  at  first,  when  you  see 
one  of  a  group  of  them  hanging  from  a  piece  of 
floating  timber,  like  a  little  smooth,  white  bivalve  shell, 
as  big  as  your  thumb-nail,  at  the  end  of  a  thickish, 
worm-like  stalk,  from  one  to  ten  inches  long  (Fig.  10). 
But  you  will  soon  see  that  there  are  not  only  two  valves 
to  the  white  shell,  but  three  smaller  ones  as  well  as  the 
two  principal  ones.  This  does  not  separate  them  alto- 
gether from  the  bivalve-shelled  molluscs  (mussels,  clams, 
oysters),  for  the  bivalve  molluscs,  which  bore  in  stone 
and  clay,  have  small  extra  shelly  plates,  besides  the  two 
chief  ones,  whilst  the  Teredo,  or  ship's  worm — a  true 
bivalve  mollusc — has  an  enormously  long,  worm -like 
body  which  favours  a  comparison  with  it  of  the  long- 
stalked  barnacle.  If  a  group  of  barnacles  is  floating 
attached  to  a  piece  of  timber  undisturbed  in  a  tank  of 
sea-water  you  will  see  the  little  shells  gape,  and  from 
between  them  a  bunch  of  curved,  many-jointed  feelers 
will  issue  and  make  a  succession  of  grasping  or  clawing 
movements,  as  though  trying  to  draw  something  into  the 
shell,  which,  in  fact,  is  what  they  are  doing — namely, 
industriously  raking  the  water  on  the  chance  of  bringing 
some  particle  of  food  to  the  mouth  which  lies  within  the 
shell  (Fig.  10). 


108 


BARNACLES  AND  OTHER  CRUSTACEANS     109 


ccr 


sc. 


t. 


FIG.  10. — The  Common 
Ship's  Barnacle,  Lepas 
anatifera,  natural  size. 
The  name  "Anatifera," 
the  "  goose  -  bearer," 
was  given  to  this 
species  by  Linnaeus  in 
reference  to  the  legend 
of  its  giving  birth  to 
young  geese. 

St.,  stalk. 

dr.,  cirri,  or  double  hairy 
legs. 

fe.f  opening  of  the  semi- 
nal duct. 

sc. ,  scutum  ;  /,  tergum, 
the  two  plates  or  shells 
of  the  left  side  ;  c,  the 
middle  piece  or  shell 
called  the  "carina." 


i  io  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

It  is  not  every  one  who  has  the  chance  of  seeing 
living  ship's  barnacles  (Lepas),  but  anyone  can  pick  up 
a  stone  or  bit  of  rock  on  the  seashore  with  live  sea-acorns 
or  acorn-barnacles  (Balanus)  adherent  to  it.  Each  is 
like  a  little  truncated  volcano  (Fig.  11),  the  sides  of 
which  correspond  to  the  pair  of  larger  shells  of  the  ship's 
barnacle,  fused  together  and  grown  into  a  cone-like  wall. 
The  acorn-barnacle  has  no  stalk,  but  adheres  by  its 
broad  base  to  the  stone.  Just  within  the  shelly  crater 
are  four  small  hinged  plates  or  valves  in  pairs,  identical 
with  the  smaller  shelly  bits  of  the  ship's 
barnacle.  When  you  first  see  your 
specimen,  the  valves  are  tightly  closed. 
After  a  few  minutes  in  a  glass  of  sea- 
water  they  open  right  and  left,  and  up 
jumps — jack-in-the-box-wise — a  tuft  of 

pIG>  IIg A   large    bowing  and  scraping  feelers  or  tentacles, 

British  Sea-acorn,     like  those  of  the  ship's  barnacle.       If 
Balanus  porcatus,     disturbed,  they  shoot  inwards,  and  the 

allied  to  the  Ship's  * '• 

Barnacle.     /,  the  valves  close  on  them  like  a  spring  trap- 
feather  -  like    legs  door. 
issuing    from    the 
shell.      Drawn  of  ,  T  A .  .  -     t .  ... 

the  natural  size.  Now>  these  clawing>  feathery  little 

plumes  are  found,  when  we  examine 
them  with  a  hand-glass,  to  be  six  pairs  in  number,  and 
each  of  them  is  Y-shaped,  like  the  swimmerets  of  a 
lobster.  The  arms  of  the  Y  are  built  up  of  many 
little  joints  and  covered  with  coarse  hairs.  As  a  result 
of  the  study  of  the  young  condition  of  the  ship's 
barnacle  and  the  sea-acorn,  we  find  that  these  six  pairs 
of  Y-shaped  plumes  are  six  pairs  of  legs  corresponding 
to  those  of  the  mid-body  (some  of  the  walking  legs  and 
some  of  the  foot-jaws)  of  the  lobster,  and  that  the  shelly 
hinged  plates  of  the  barnacles  correspond  to  the  over- 
hanging sides  of  the  "  head  "  of  the  lobster  and  prawn, 


BARNACLES  AND  OTHER  CRUSTACEANS  in 

which  one  can  imagine  to  be  hinged  along  a  line  running 
down  the  back  so  as  to  open  like  the  covers  of  a  book. 
There  are  very  common  little,  free-swimming  "  water- 
fleas  "  (minute  crustaceans)  of  many  hundreds  of  kinds 
which  have  hinged  shells  of  this  description  when  in  the 
full-grown  condition,  and  it  is  found  that  the  young 
barnacles  and  sea-acorns  pass  through  a  free-swimming 
phase  of  growth  (the  Cyprid  stage),  in  which  they  greatly 
resemble  these  "  water-fleas." 

In  fact,  it  is  quite  easy  to  hatch  the  young  from  the 
eggs  of  either  ship's  barnacles  or  acorn-barnacles  at  the 
right  season  of  the  year.  They  commence  life  as  do  so 
many  Crustacea — in  the  "  nauplius  state,"  with  three  pairs 
of  jerking  limbs  (Fig.  9).  As  they  grow  the  overhanging 
pair  of  shells,  delicate  and  transparent,  appear ;  the  three 
pairs  of  nauplius  legs  lose  their  swimming  power ;  the 
most  anterior  (always  called  antennules  in  all  crustaceans) 
become  elongated  and  provided  each  with  an  adhesive 
sucker,  on  the  face  of  which  a  large  cement  gland  opens, 
secreting  abundant  adhesive  cement ;  the  second  pair 
(antennae)  shrivel  and  disappear  altogether ;  the  third 
pair  lose  their  long  blades  for  striking  the  water  and 
remain  as  simple,  but  strong,  stumps — the  mandibles  ! 
Two  new  pairs  of  little  jaw-feet  appear  behind  these, 
and  farther  back  on  the  now  enlarged  body  (the  whole 
creature  is  not  bigger  than  a  small  canary  seed  !)  six 
pairs  of  Y-shaped  legs  appear  and  strike  the  water 
rhythmically,  so  that  the  little  creature  swims  with  some 
sobriety.  The  region  to  which  these  legs  are  attached 
is  marked  with  rings  or  segments,  and  behind  it  follows 
a  small,  limbless,  hind  body  of  four  segments,  or  joints, 
ending  with  two  little  hairy  prongs  like  a  pitchfork. 
The  right  and  left  movable,  shell-like  fold,  or  down- 
growth,  of  the  sides  of  the  body  encloses  the  whole 


112 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


creature  except    the    protruding    antennules    with    their 
suckers. 

In  this  condition  it  swims  about  for  a  time,  and  then, 
once  for  all,  fixes  itself  by  means  of  the  suckers  and  their 
abundant  cement,  on  to  rock,  stone,  or  floating  wood — 
and  there  remains  for  the  rest  of  its  life  (Fig.  12).  It 


,       i    \      >  ' 

dr.  77i.fr.  oi.    a'. 


FlG.  12. — Two  stages  in  the  growth  of  the  Common  Barnacle 
from  the  Nauplius  stage.     Diagrammatic. 

dr.,  the  double  legs  or  cirri;   w,  mouth;  o,  the  single  eye  j 

d,  the  digestive  canal. 
a1,  one  of  the  antennules  or  "  feelers  "  (that  of  the  right  side  of 

the  head)  provided  with  a  sucking  disk  by  means  of  which 

the  young  animal  becomes  fixed. 

increases  enormously  in  size,  the  delicate  transparent 
shell  develops  into  hard  calcareous  plates,  opening  and 
shutting  on  the  hinge-line  of  the  back.  In  the  stalked 
kinds  a  peculiar  elongated  growth  of  an  inch  or  several 
inches  in  length  takes  place  between  the  mouth  and  the 
fixed  suckers  of  the  antennules  (Figs.  10  and  I  2) ;  in  the 
short,  so-called,  "acorn"  kinds,  this  stalk  does  not  form,  but 
a  separate  part  of  the  shell  grows  into  a  ring-like  protective 


BARNACLES  AND  OTHER  CRUSTACEANS     113 

wall  or  cone.  The  creature  is  thus  actually  fastened  by 
its  head — "  upside  down,  with  its  legs  sticking  up  "  not 
in  the  air,  but  in  the  water.  Those  six  pairs  of  Y-shaped 
legs,  though  no  longer  enabling  the  barnacle  to  swim, 
increase  in  relative  size,  and  keep  up  their  active  move- 
ments. It  is  they  which  emerge  like  a  plume  when  the 
valves  of  the  shell  open  and  carry  on  the  rhythmic 
bowing  and  scraping  movement  described  above. 

The  barnacles  have,  in  fact,  undergone  a  transforma- 
tion which  may  be  compared  to  that  experienced  by  a 
man  who  should  begin  life  as  an  active  boy  running 
about  as  others  do,  but  be  compelled  suddenly  by  some 
strange  spell  or  Arabian  djin  to  become  glued  by  the 
top  of  his  head  to  the  pavement,  and  to  spend  his  time 
in  kicking  his  food  into  his  mouth  with  his  legs.  Such 
is  the  fate  of  the  barnacles,  and  it  is  as  strange  and 
exceptional  amongst  crustaceans  as  it  would  be  amongst 
men.  Indeed,  to  "  earn  a  living "  human  acrobats  will 
submit  to  something  very  much  like  it.  It  is  this  change 
from  the  life  of  a  free-living  shrimp  to  that  of  a  living 
lump,  adherent  by  its  head  to  rocks  or  floating  logs, 
that  Vaughan  Thompson  in  1830  discovered  to  be  the 
story  of  every  barnacle,  and  so  showed  that  they  were 
really  good  crustaceans  gone  wrong,  and  not  molluscs. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  young  ascidian  or  sea-squirt 
which  swims  freely  and  has  the  shape  of  a  tadpole,  also 
when  very  young  fixes  itself  by  the  top  of  its  head  to  a 
rock  or  piece  of  seaweed,  and  remains  immovable  for  the 
rest  of  its  life.  Though  agreeing  in  their  strange  fixation 
by  the  head,  the  barnacle  and  the  ascidian  are  very  different 
kinds  of  animals.  (For  some  account  of  the  Ascidian  the 
reader  may  consult  the  chapter  "  Tadpoles  of  the  Sea  "  in 
"  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  Second  Series.  Methuen, 
1912.) 
8 


H4  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

The  name  "  Cirripedes "  is  commonly  used  for  the 
order  or  group  formed  by  the  barnacles — in  allusion  to 
the  plume-like  appearance  of  their  "  raking  "  legs.  Stalked 
barnacles  often  are  found  in  the  ocean  attached  to  float- 
ing pumice-stone,  and  one  species  has  been  discovered 
attached  to  the  web  of  the  foot  of  a  sea-bird.  They,  like 
many  other  creatures,  benefit  by  being  carried  far  and 
wide  by  floating  objects.  Whales  have  very  large  and 
solid  acorn-barnacles  peculiar  to  them,  fixed  deeply  in 
their  skin.  Others  attach  themselves  to  marine  turtles. 

With  few  exceptions  the  crustaceans  are  of  separate 
sexes,  male  and  female.  But  in  nearly  all  classes  of 
animals  we  find  some  kinds,  even  whole  orders,  in  which 
the  ovaries  and  spermaries  are  present  in  one  and  the 
same  individual.  "  Monoecious  "  or  "  one-housed  " — that 
is  to  say,  possessing  one  house  or  individual  for  both 
ovaries  and  spermaries — is  the  proper  word  for  this 
condition,  but  a  usual  term  for  it  is  "  hermaphrodite." 
"  Dioecious  "  is  the  term  applied  to  animals  or  plants  in 
which  there  are  two  kinds  of  individuals — one  to  carry 
the  spermaries,  the  male,  and  the  other  to  carry  the 
ovaries,  the  female.  It  is  probable  that  the  monoecious 
condition  has  preceded  the  dioecious  in  all  but  unicellular 
animals.  In  vertebrate  animals  as  high  as  the  frogs  and 
the  toads  we  find  rudimentary  ovaries  in  the  male,  and 
in  individual  cases  both  ovaries  and  spermaries  are  well 
developed.  Such  a  condition  is  not  rare  as  an  individual 
abnormality  in  fishes.  In  some  common  species  of  sea- 
perch  (Serranus)  and  others  it  is  not  an  exception  but 
the  rule. 

Many  groups  of  molluscs  are  monoecious,  and  it  is 
not  in  any  way  astonishing  to  find  a  group  of  crus- 
taceans which  are  so.  The  Cirripedes  or  barnacles  are 


BARNACLES  AND  OTHER  CRUSTACEANS     115 

an  example.  It  is  probable  that  the  presence  of  ovaries 
and  spermaries  in  the  same  individual — the  monoecious 
condition — is  an  advantage  to  immovable  fixed  animals. 
During  the  voyage  of  the  "  Beagle,"  and  making  use  on 
his  return  of  the  collections  then  obtained,  Darwin 
carried  out  a  very  thorough  study  of  the  Cirripedes  of 
all  kinds  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  He  worked  out 
their  anatomy  minutely,  classified  the  300  different  kinds 
then  known,  and  described  many  new-  kinds.  The 
stalked  barnacles  often  occur  in  groups,  the  individuals 
being  of  different  ages  and  sizes,  the  small  young  ones 
sometimes  fixing  themselves  by  their  sucker-bearing 
heads  to  the  stalks  of  their  well-grown  relatives.  In  all 
the  varied  kinds  studied  by  Darwin  he  found  that  the 
full-grown  individuals  were  monoecious — that  is,  of  com- 
bined sex — as  was  known  to  be  the  case  in  those  studied 
before  his  day.  But  Darwin  made  the  remarkable 
discovery  that  in  two  kinds  of  stalked  barnacles  (not 
the  common  ship's  barnacles),  comprising  several  species, 
"  dwarf  males "  were  present  perched  upon  the  edge  of 
the  shell  of  the  large  monoecious  (bi-sexual)  individuals. 
These  dwarf  males  were  from  one-tenth  to  one-twentieth 
the  length  of  the  large  normal  monoecious  individuals, 
but  usually  possessed  the  characteristic  details  of  the 
shell-valves  and  other  features  of  the  latter. 

This  existence  of  a  sort  of  supernumerary  diminutive 
kind  of  male  as  an  accompaniment  to  a  race  of  normal 
monoecious  individuals  was  quite  a  new  thing  when 
Darwin  discovered  it.  That  all  the  males  in  some 
dioecious  animals  are  minute  as  compared  with  the 
females  was  known,  and  has  been  established  in  the  case 
of  some  parasitic  crustaceans,  in  some  of  the  wheel- 
animalcules,  and  in  the  most  exaggerated  degree  in  the 
curious  worms,  Bonellia  and  Hamingia.  But  the  exist- 


ii6  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

ence  of  "  complemental  males,"  as  Darwin  called  them, 
existing  apparently  in  order  to  fertilize  the  eggs  should 
they  escape  fertilization  by  the  ordinary  monoecious 
individuals,  was  a  new  thing.  And  it  was  doubted  and 
disputed  when  Darwin  described  his  observations  fifty- 
six  years  ago.  They  were,  in  fact,  by  many  regarded 
as  a  distinct  species  parasitic  upon  the  larger  barnacles 
on  which  they  were  found  until  Darwin's  conclusion  as 
to  their  nature  was  confirmed  by  the  report  of  Dr.  Hoek, 
on  the  barnacles  brought  home  by  the  "  Challenger " 
expedition. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  recent  studies  have 
shown  that  in  some  of  the  barnacles  with  dwarf  males 
(species  of  Scalpellum)  the  large  individuals  are  no 
longer  monoecious,  but  have  become  purely  females, 
whilst  in  some  other  species  dwarf  males  have  been 
discovered  which  have  rudimentary  ovaries.  Thus  we 
get  gradations  leading  from  one  extreme  case  to  the 
other.  Darwin  always  felt  confidence  in  his  original 
observations  on  this  matter,  and  was  proportionately 
delighted  when,  after  thirty  years,  his  early  work  was 
proved  to  be  sound.  In  the  Natural  History  Museum 
at  the  Darwin  centenary  in  1 909,  a  temporary  exhibition 
of  specimens,  note-books,  and  letters  associated  with 
Darwin's  work,  was  brought  together.  His  original  speci- 
mens and  drawings  of  Cirripedes  and  of  the  wonderful 
little  "  complemental  males  "  of  the  barnacles  were  placed 
on  view. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  THE 
GOOSE 

THE  curious  belief,  widely  spread  in  former  ages — 
that  the  creatures  (described  in  the  last  chapter) 
called  "  barnacles  "  or  "  ship's  barnacles  " — often  found 
attached  in  groups  to  pieces  of  floating  timber  in  .the 
sea  as  well  as  fixed  to  the  bottoms  of  wooden  ships — 
are  the  young  of  a  particular  kind  of  goose  called  "  the 
barnacle  goose,"  which  is  supposed  to  hatch  out  of  the 
white  shell  of  the  long-stalked  barnacle,  is  a  very 
remarkable  example  of  the  persistence  of  a  tradition 
which  is  entirely  fanciful.  It  was  current  in  Western 
Europe  for  six  or  seven  centuries,  and  was  discussed, 
refuted,  and  again  attested  by  eminent  authorities  even 
as  late  as  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Society — the  first 
president  of  which,  Sir  Robert  Moray,  read  a  paper  at 
one  of  the  earliest  meetings  of  the  society  in  1 66 1,  in 
which  he  described  the  bird-like  creature  which  he  had 
observed  within  the  shell  of  the  common  ship's  barnacle, 
and  favoured  the  belief  that  a  bird  was  really  in  this 
way  produced  by  a  metamorphosis  of  the  barnacle. 

The  story  was  ridiculed  and  rejected  by  no  less  a 
philosopher  than  Roger  Bacon  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
and  was  also  discredited  by  the  learned  Aristotelian 
Albertus  Magnus  at  about  the  same  time.  No  trace  of 


Ii8  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

it  is  to  be  found  in  Aristotle  or  Herodotus  or  any 
classical  author,  nor  in  the  "  Physiologus."  The  legend 
seems  to  have  originated  in  the  East,  for  the  earliest 
written  statement  which  we  have  concerning  it  is  by  a 
certain  Father  Damien,  in  the  eleventh  century,  who 
simply  declares :  "  Birds  can  be  produced  by  trees,  as 
happens  in  the  island  of  Thilon  in  India."  We  have 
also  a  reference  to  the  same  marvel  in  an  ancient 
Oriental  book  (the  "  Zohar,"  the  principal  book  of  the 
Kaballah),  as  follows :  "  The  Rabbi  Abba  saw  a  tree 
from  the  fruits  of  which  birds  were  hatched."  The 
earliest  written  statements  of  the  legend  are,  it  appears, 
to  the  effect  that  there  is  a  tree  which  produces  fruits 
from  which  birds  are  hatched.  The  belief  in  the  story 
seems  to  have  died  out  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  when  the  structure  of  the  barnacle  lying  within 
its  shell  was  examined  without  prejudice,  and  it  was 
seen  to  have  only  the  most  remote  resemblance  to  a 
bird.  The  plumose  legs  or  "  cirrhi "  of  the  barnacle 
(Fig.  10)  have  a  superficial  resemblance  to  a  young 
feather  or  possibly  to  the  jointed  toes  of  a  young  bird, 
and  there  the  possibilities  of  comparison  end. 

The  notion  that  a  particular  kind  of  black  goose 
(a  "  brent "),  which  occurs  on  the  marshy  coast  of  Britain 
in  great  numbers,  is  the  goose,  the  bird,  produced  by  the 
barnacle  was  favoured  by  the  fact  that  this  goose  does 
not  breed  in  Britain,  and  yet  suddenly  appears  in  large 
flocks,  in  districts  where  barnacles  attached  to  rotting 
timber  are  often  drifted  on  to  the  shore.  It  was  accord- 
ingly assumed  by  learned  monks — who  already  knew  the 
travellers  tale,  that  in  distant  lands  birds  are  produced 
by  the  transformation  of  barnacles — that  this  goose  is 
the  actual  bird  which  is  bred  from  the  barnacles,  and 
it  was  accordingly  called  "  the  barnacle  goose."  I  think 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     119 

that  this  identification  was  due  to  the  exercise  of  a  little 
authority  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  in  both  France  and 
Britain,  who  were  thus  enabled  to  claim  the  abundant 
11  barnacle  goose "  as  a  fish  in  its  nature  and  origin 
rather  than  a  fowl,  and  so  to  use  it  as  food  on  the  fast- 
days  of  the  Church.  Pope  Innocent  III  (to  whom  the 
matter  was  referred)  considered  it  necessary  in  1215  to 
prohibit  the  eating  of  "  barnacle  geese "  in  Lent,  since 
although  he  admitted  that  they  are  not  generated  in  the 
ordinary  way,  he  yet  maintained  (very  reasonably)  that 
they  live  and  feed  like  ducks,  and  cannot  be  regarded 
as  differing  in  nature  from  other  birds. 

Thus  we  see  that  in  early  and  even  later  days  a 
good  deal  hung  on  the  truth  of  this  story  of  the 
generation  of  barnacle  geese.  The  story  was  popularly 
discussed  by  the  devout  and  by  sceptics,  and  appears  to 
have  been  known  in  France  as  "  1'histoire  du  canard." 
At  last  in  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  finally  dis- 
credited, owing  to  the  account  given  by  some  Dutch 
explorers  of  the  eggs  and  young  of  the  barnacle  goose — 
like  those  of  any  other  goose — and  its  breeding-place  in 
the  far  north  on  the  coast  of  Greenland.  The  discredited 
and  hoary  legend  now  became  the  type  and  exemplar  of 
a  marvellous  story  which  is  destitute  of  foundation,  and 
so  the  term  "  un  canard  "  (short  for  histoire  d'un  canard), 
commonly  applied  in  French  to  such  stories,  receives  its 
explanation.  Our  own  term  for  such  stories,  in  use  as 
long  since  as  1640,  namely,  "a  cock-and-bull  story,"  has 
not  been  traced  to  its  historical  source.1 

That    the    story    of    the    goose    or     duck    and    the 

1  Probably  it  means  "  a  silly  story  told  by  a  cock  to  a  bull  ! "  as 
suggested  by  the  French  word  coq-d-Fdne,  which  means  a  story 
told  or  fit  to  be  told  by  a  cock  to  an  ass  ! 


120  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

transformed  barnacle  was  a  popular  one  in  Shakespear's 
time,  whether  believed  or  disbelieved,  appears  from  his 
reference  to  barnacles  in  "  The  Tempest."  Caliban  says 
to  Stephano  and  Trinculo,  when  they  have  all  three 
been  plagued  by  Prospero's  magic,  and  plunged  by  Ariel 
into  "  the  filthy  mantled  pool  "  near  at  hand,  "  dancing 
up  to  their  chins  " :  "  We  shall  lose  our  time  and  all  be 
turned  to  barnacles,  or  to  apes  with  foreheads  villainous 
low."  Probably  enough,  this  is  an  allusion  to  the 
supposed  Protean  nature  of  barnacles.  They  are  not 
alluded  to  elsewhere  in  Shakespear. 

One  of  the  most  precise  accounts  of  the  generation  of 
geese  by  barnacles  is  that  of  the  mediaeval  historian 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  who  visited  Ireland  and  wrote  an 
account  of  what  he  saw  in  the  time  of  Henry  II,  at  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century.  He  says :  "  There  are  in 
this  place  many  birds  which  are  called  Bernacae ; 
Nature  produces  them,  against  Nature,  in  a  most 
extraordinary  way.  They  are  like  marsh-geese,  but 
somewhat  smaller.  They  are  produced  from  fir  timber 
tossed  along  the  sea,  and  are  at  first  like  gum.  After- 
wards they  hang  down  by  their  beaks  as  if  they  were  a 
seaweed  attached  to  the  timber,  and  are  surrounded  by 
shells  in  order  to  grow  more  freely.  Having  thus  in 
process  of  time  been  clothed  with  a  strong  coat  of 
feathers,  they  either  fall  into  the  water  or  fly  freely  away 
into  the  air."  "  I  have  frequently  seen,"  he  proceeds, 
"  with  my  own  eyes,  more  than  a  thousand  of  these 
small  bodies  of  birds,  hanging  down  on  the  seashore  from 
a  piece  of  timber,  enclosed  in  their  shells  and  ready 
formed.  They  do  not  breed  and  lay  eggs  like  other 
birds ;  nor  do  they  ever  hatch  any  eggs  nor  build  nests 
anywhere.  Hence  bishops  and  clergymen  in  some  parts 
of  Ireland  do  not  scruple  to  dine  off  these  birds  at  the 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     121 

time  of  fasting,  because  they  are  not   flesh  nor  born  of 
flesh!" 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Giraldus  does  not  state — in 
accordance  with  the  tradition  as  reported  by  earlier 
writers — that  there  is  a  tree  the  buds  of  which  become 
transformed  into  the  geese,  but  says  merely  that  the 
"small  bodies  of  birds,"  clearly  indicating  by  his 
description  groups  of  ship's  barnacles,  are  "  produced 
from  fir  timber  tossed  along  the  sea."  It  is  also  note- 
worthy that  he  calls  the  geese  themselves  "  Bernacae," 
which  is  the  Celtic  name  for  a  shell-fish. 

Later  the  belief  seems  to  have  reverted  to  the  older 
tradition,  or  probably  enough  the  complete  story,  includ- 
ing the  existence  of  the  bird-producing  tree,  existed  in 
its  original  form  in  "  seats  of  learning  "  in  other  parts  of 
the  British  Islands  outside  Ireland,  and  also  in  Paris  and 
other  places  in  Western  Europe.  For  we  find  that  in 
1435  the  learned  Sylvius,  who  afterwards  became  Pope 
Pius  II,  visited  King  James  of  Scotland  in  order,  among 
other  things,  to  see  the  wonderful  tree  which  he  had 
heard  of  as  growing  in  Scotland  from  the  fruit  of  which 
geese  are  born.  He  complains  that  "  miracles  will 
always  flee  further  and  further,"  for  when  he  had  now 
arrived  in  Scotland  and  asked  to  see  the  tree,  he  was 
told  that  it  did  not  grow  there,  but  farther  north,  in  the 
Orkneys.  And  so  he  did  not  see  the  tree. 

In  1597,  John  Gerard,  in  the  third  book  of  his 
"  Herbal,  or  History  of  Plants,"  writes  as  follows  :  "  There 
are  found  in  the  north  parts  of  Scotland  and  the  Islands 
adjacent  called  Orchades,  certaine  trees  whereon  do  grow 
certaine  shell-fishes  of  a  white  colour  tending  to  russett, 
wherein  are  contained  little  creatures  which  shels  in 


122  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

time  of  maturity  doe  open  and  out  of  them  grow  those 
little  living  things  which,  falling  into  the  water,  doe 
become  foules  whom  we  call  Barnacles,  in  the  north  of 
England  Brent  Geese,  and  in  Lancashire  Tree  Geese." 
Gerard  is  here  either  adopting  or  suggesting  an  identi- 
fication of  the  tradition  of  the  tree  which  produces 
birds  from  its  buds,  with  the  floating  timber  bearing 
ship's  barnacles,  which  were  supposed  to  give  birth  to 
the  brent  geese.  He  does  not  say  that  he  has  seen,  or 
knows  persons  who  have  seen,  the  barnacles  attached 
to  the  branches  of  living  trees.  Nevertheless,  he  gives 
a  picture  of  them  so  attached  (Fig.  1 3).  It  has  been 
suggested,  in  later  times,  that  such  a  fixation  of  barnacles 
to  the  branches  of  living  trees  might  occur  in  some  of 
the  sea-water  lochs  of  the  west  of  Scotland, — just  as 
oysters  become  attached  to  the  mangrove  trees  in  the 
West  Indies, — and  it  has  further  been  suggested  that 
willows  might  thus  droop  their  branches  into  the  sea- 
water,  and  that  the  catkins  on  the  willow-shoots  might 
be  taken  for  an  early  stage  of  growth  of  the  barnacles ; 
but  I  have  not  come  across  any  record  of  such  fixation 
of  barnacles  on  living  shrubs  or  branches  of  trees,  and  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  Gerard's  story  of  what  occurs  in 
the  distant  Orkneys  is  merely  an  attempt  to  substantiate 
the  bird-producing  tree  of  the  Oriental  story,  by  quietly 
assuming  that  the  sea-borne  timber  covered  with  barnacles 
existed  somewhere  as  living  trees  and  exhibited  this  same 
property  of  budding  forth  barnacles  which  on  opening  liber- 
ated each  a  minute  gosling.  Gerard  continues  as  follows  : 
"But  what  our  eyes  have  seen  and  hands  have  handled 
we  shall  declare."  There  is,  he  tells  us,  a  small  island  in 
Lancashire  called  the  Pile  of  Foulders,  and  there  rotten 
trees  and  the  broken  timbers  of  derelict  ships  are  thrown 
up  by  the  sea.  On  them  forms  "  a  certain  spume  or 
froth  which  in  time  breeds  into  certaine  shells."  He 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     123 


FIG.  13. — The  picture  of  the  "Goose  Tree,"  copied  from  the 
first  edition  of  Gerard's  "  Herbal." 

The  fruit-like  oval  bodies  are  "barnacles"  (Lepas)  fancifully 
represented  as  growing  like  buds  or  fruit  on  a  little  tree. 
Some  of  the  young  geese  are  drawn  as  in  the  act  of  escaping 
from  the  barnacle-shells,  and  others  are  represented 
swirrfming  in  the  water. 


I24  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

then  gives  a  description  of  these  shells  and  the  fish 
contained  therein,  which  is  a  correct  enough  account  of 
the  common  ship's  barnacle.  He  proceeds,  however,  to 
an  assertion  which  is  not  of  something  which  he  saw  or 
handled,  namely,  that  the  animal  within  the  shell,  though 
like  the  fish  of  an  oyster,  gradually  grows  to  a  bird  and 
comes  forth  hanging  to  the  shell  by  its  bill.  Finally,  he 
says,  it  escapes  to  maturity.  At  the  end  of  his  chapter 
on  this  subject,  Gerard  says :  "  I  dare  not  absolutely 
avouch  every  circumstance  of  the  first  part  of  this 
history  concerning  the  tree  which  beareth  those  buds 
aforesaide,  but  will  leave  it  to  a  further  consideration." 

Gerard's  "  Herbal  n  was  reprinted  forty  years  later  (in 
1636)  and  edited  by  Johnson,  a  member  of  the  Society 
of  Apothecaries.  He  writes  with  contempt  of  Gerard's 
credulity  as  to  the  story  of  the  barnacle  and  the  goose, 
and  states  that  certain  "  Hollanders  "  in  seeking  a  north- 
east passage  to  China  had  recently  come  across  some 
islands  in  the  Arctic  Sea  which  were  the  breeding-place 
of  the  so-called  barnacle  goose,  and  had  taken  and  eaten 
sixty  of  their  eggs,  besides  young  and  old  birds. 

Probably  there  were  always  lovers  of  the  marvellous 
and  the  occult  who  favoured  and  would  favour  to-day 
the  tradition  of  the  conversion  of  one  animal  into 
another  and  such  wonders ;  and  there  were  also  both  in 
the  days  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  and  even  in  the 
darkest  of  the  Middle  Ages,  men  with  a  sceptical  and 
inquiring  spirit,  who  accepted  no  traditional  testimony, 
but  demanded,  as  the  basis  of  their  admitting  something 
unlikely  as  nevertheless  true,  the  trial  of  experiment  and 
the  examination  of  specimens.  What  has  happened 
since  Gerard's  time  and  the  incorporation  of  the  Royal 
Society  in  1662,  is  that  the  sceptical  men  have  got 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     125 

the  upper  hand,  though  not  without  much  opposition. 
In  this  country,  owing  to  the  defective  education  ad- 
ministered in  our  public  schools  and  older  universities, 
there  is  still  quite  a  large  number  of  well-to-do  people 
ready  to  believe  in  any  "  occult "  imposture  or  fantasy 
that  may  be  skilfully  brought  to  their  notice. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  bear  in  mind  when  we 
consider  these  strange  beliefs  held  by  really  learned  and 
intelligent  men  in  the  past,  that  the  investigation  of 
nature  had  not  advanced  very  far  in  their  time.  It  was 
not  held,  as  it  is  to-day,  as  an  established  fact  that  living 
things  are  generated  only  by  slips  or  cuttings  of  a  parent 
or  from  eggs  or  germs  which  are  special  detached 
particles  of  the  parent.  It  was  held  to  be  a  matter  of 
common  observation  and  certainty  that  all  sorts  of  living 
things  are  "  spontaneously  generated  "  by  slime,  by  sea 
foam,  by  mud,  and  by  decomposing  dead  bodies  of 
animals  and  trees.  It  was  also  held,  in  consequence  of 
a  blind  belief  in,  and  often  a  complete  misunderstanding 
of,  the  legends  and  fairy  tales  of  the  ancients  and  of 
the  preposterous  "  Bestiaries  "  and  books  on  magic  which 
were  the  fashion  in  mediaeval  times,  that  it  is  quite  a 
usual  and  natural  thing  for  one  animal  or  plant  to  change 
into  another.  Hence  there  was  nothing  very  surprising 
(though  worthy  of  record)  in  a  barnacle  changing  into  a 
young  goose,  or  in  the  buds  of  a  tree  becoming  in  some 
conditions  changed  into  barnacles ! 

So,  too,  the  notion  that  rotting  timber  can  "  generate  " 
barnacles  was  not,  to  our  forefathers,  at  all  out  of  the 
way  or  preposterous.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  1646  was 
unable  to  make  up  his  mind  on  this  matter,  and  believed 
in  the  spontaneous  generation  of  mice  by  wheat,  to 
which  he  briefly  alludes  in  his  curious  book  called 


126  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

"  Pseudodoxia  Epidemica,  or  an  Enquiry  into  Vulgar 
and  Common  Errors."  The  account  of  the  creation  given 
by  the  poet  Milton  was  based  upon  the  belief  in  the 
daily  occurrence  of  such  spontaneous  generation  of  living 
things  of  high  complexity  of  structure  and  large  size, 
from  slime  and  mud.  The  process  of  creation  of  living 
things  conceived  by  him  was  but  a  general  and  initial 
exhibition  of  an  activity  of  earth  and  sea  which  in 
his  belief  was  still  in  daily  operation  in  remote  and 
undisturbed  localities. 

In  1668  the  Italian  naturalist,  Redi,  demonstrated 
that  putrefying  flesh  does  not  "  spontaneously  breed  " 
maggots.  He  showed  that  if  a  piece  of  flesh  is 
protected  by  a  wire  network  cover  from  the  access 
of  flies,  no  maggots  appear  in  it,  and  that  the  flies 
attracted  by  the  smell  of  the  meat  lay  their  eggs  on  the 
wire  network,  unable  to  reach  the  meat,  whilst  if  the 
wire  cover  is  removed  they  lay  their  eggs  on  the  meat, 
and  from  them  the  maggots  are  hatched.  It  took 
a  long  time  for  this  demonstration  by  Redi  to  affect 
popular  belief,  and  there  are  still  country  folk  who 
believe  in  the  spontaneous  generation  of  maggots.1 

But  few,  if  any,  persons  of  ordinary  intelligence  or 
education  now  believe  that  these  sudden  productions  of 
living  things,  without  regular  and  known  parentage,  take 
place.  The  spontaneous  generation  of  large,  tangible 
creatures  having  ceased  to  be  an  article  of  general  belief, 
the  conviction  nevertheless  persisted  for  some  time  that 
at  any  rate  minute  microscopic  living  things  were 
generated  without  parentage.  This  theory  was  more 
difficult  to  test  on  account  of  the  need  for  employing 

1  See  the  chapter,  "  Primitive  Beliefs  about  Fatherless  Progeny," 
in  "  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  Second  Series. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     127 

the  microscope  in  the  inquiry,  which  was  not  brought 
to  a  high  state  of  efficiency  until  the  last  century.  By 
experiments  similar  to  those  of  Redi,  it  was  shown  in 
the  first  half  of  last  century  by  Theodor  Schwann  that 
even  the  minute  bacteria  do  not  appear  in  putrescible 
material  when  those  already  in  it  are  killed  by  boiling 
that  material,  and  when  the  subsequent  access  to  it  of 
other  bacteria  is  prevented  by  closing  all  possible 
entrance  of  air-borne  particles,  or  insect  carriers  of  germs. 
It  took  another  fifty  years  to  thoroughly  establish  by 
observation  and  experiment  the  truth  of  Schwann's 
refutation  of  the  supposed  "  spontaneous  generation  "  of 
the  minutest  forms  of  life. 

As  an  example  of  the  strange  incapacity  for  making 
correct  observation  and  the  failure  to  record  correctly 
things  observed  which  are  frequently  exhibited  by  the 
most  highly  placed  "  men  of  education,"  as  well  as  by 
uneducated  peasants  and  fisher  folk,  we  have  the  short 
paper  entitled,  "  A  Relation  concerning  Barnacles,"  by  Sir 
Robert  Moray — the  first  president  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  London  (from  1661  until  its  incorporation  in  1662) 
— a  very  distinguished  man,  and  an  intimate  friend  of 
King  Charles  II.  This  paper  was  read  to  the  society  in 
1 66 1  and  published  in  1677  in  vol.  xii.  of  the  "Philo- 
sophical Transactions."  Sir  Robert  relates  how  he  found 
on  the  coast  a  quantity  of  dead  barnacles  attached  to  a 
piece  of  timber,  and  that  in  each  barnacle's  shell  was  a 
bird.  He  writes :  "  This  bird  in  every  shell  that  I 
opened,  as  well  the  least  as  the  biggest,  I  found  so 
curiously  and  completely  formed  that  there  appeared 
nothing  wanting,  as  to  the  external  parts,  for  making  up 
a  perfect  sea-fowl ;  every  little  part  appearing  so  dis- 
tinctly that  the  whole  looked  like  a  large  bird  seen 
through  a  concave  or  diminishing  glass,  colour  and 


128  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

feature  being  everywhere  so  clear  and  near.  The  little 
bill  like  that  of  a  goose,  the  eyes  marked, .  the  head, 
neck,  breast,  wings,  tail  and  feet  formed,  the  feathers 
everywhere  perfectly  shaped  and  blackish  coloured,  and 
the  feet  like  those  of  other  waterfowl — to  my  best  remem- 
brance. All  being  dead  and  dry,  I  did  not  look  after 
the  inward  parts  of  them."  If  the  reader  will  now  look 
at  Fig.  I  5,  C,  which  represents  the  soft  parts  of  a  barnacle 
when  the  shells  of  one  side  are  removed,  he  will  see 
how  far  Sir  Robert  Moray  must  have  been  the  victim — 
as  so  many  people  naturally  are  under  such  circumstances 
— of  imagination  and  defective  memory  when  he  wrote  this 
account.  I  have  put  into  italics  in  the  above  quotation 
from  his  "  Relation  "  his  confession  that  he  is  writing,  not 
with  his  specimens  before  him,  but  from  remembrance  of 
them.  Moreover,  he  tells  us,  with  admirable  candour, 
that  the  specimens  were  dead  and  dry  when  he  examined 
them  !  One  could  not  desire  a  better  justification  for 
the  motto  adopted  by  the  Royal  Society,  "  Nullius  in 
verba,"  and  for  the  procedure  upon  which  in  its  early 
days  the  Society  insisted — namely,  that  at  its  meetings  the 
members  should  "  bring  in  "  a  specimen  or  an  experiment, 
and  not  occupy  time  by  mere  relations  and  reports  of 
marvels.  It  is  necessary  even  at  the  present  day  to 
insist  on  such  demonstration  by  those  who  urge  us  to 
accept  as  true  their  relations  of  mysterious  experiences 
with  ghosts,  and  their  "  conviction  "  that  they  have  con- 
versed with  "  discarnate  intelligences." 


CHAPTER    XV 

MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  THE 
GOOSE 

IT  is  clear  that  there  was  a  widespread  tradition 
known  to  the  learned  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era,  according  to  which  there  existed  in  some 
distant  Eastern  land  a  tree  which  bore  buds  or  fruits 
which  became  converted  into  birds.  Connected  with 
this,  and  perhaps  really  a  part  of  it,  there  existed  a 
tradition  that  marine  "  barnacles "  gave  birth  to  geese 
from  within  their  shells,  or  are  in  some  way  converted 
into  geese.  The  two  stories  were  in  some  localities  and 
narrations  combined,  though  in  others  they  were  distinct. 
On  the  coast  of  Ireland  the  early  missionaries  of  the 
Church  (learned  men  acquainted  with  the  traditions  of 
their  time)  identified  the  migratory  brent  goose  with  the 
bird  said  to  be  produced  by  the  barnacle  ;  and  else- 
where, on  the  Scottish  coast,  the  barnacles  were  (it  was 
reported)  found  growing  on  trees.  There  is  no  such 
resemblance  between  barnacles  and  brent  geese  as  to 
have  suggested  to  the  Irish  monks  the  regular  and 
natural  conversion  of  one  into  the  other.  It  seems  most 
probable  that  the  learned  churchmen  knew  the  traditional 
story  already  before  arriving  in  Ireland,  and  applied  it  to 
the  barnacles  and  the  geese  which  they  discovered 
around  them.  Eventually  the  word  "  barnacle  "  without 
qualification  was  applied  to  the  geese,  as  we  see  in 
9 


130  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Gerard's  account  given  in  the  last  chapter.  Is  there,  it 
may  be  asked,  anything  further  known  as  to  such  a 
tradition,  and  the  place  and  manner  of  its  origin  ?  In 
the  absence  of  such  knowledge,  an  ingenious  attempt 
was  made  by  my  old  friend,  Professor  Max  Muller,  to 
account  for  the  tradition  by  the  similarity  of  the  names, 
which  he  erroneously  supposed  had  been  given  indepen- 
dently to  the  barnacle  and  to  the  "  Hibernian  "  goose. 
I  will  refer  to  this  below,  but  now  I  will  proceed  to 
give  the  most  probable  solution  of  the  mystery  as  to  the 
tradition  of  the  tree,  the  goose,  and  the  barnacle.  Its 
discovery  is  not  more  than  twenty  years  old,  and  is  due 
to  M.  Frederic  Houssay,  a  distinguished  French  zoologist 
of  the  Ecole  Normale,  who  published  it  in  the  "  Revue 
Archeologique "  in  1895.  It  has  not  hitherto  been 
brought  to  the  notice  of  English  readers,  and  I  shall 
therefore  give  a  full  account  of  it. 

The  solution  is  as  follows :  The  Mykenaean  popula- 
tion of  the  islands  of  Cyprus  and  Crete,  in  the  period 
800  to  1000  years  before  Christ,  were  great  makers  of 
pottery,  and  painted  large  earthernware  basins  and  vases 
with  a  variety  of  decorative  representations  of  marine 
life,  of  fishes,  butterflies,  birds,  and  trees.  Some  of  these 
are  to  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum  at  Bloomsbury, 
where  I  examined  them  a  few  years  ago.  Others  have  been 
figured  by  the  well-known  archaeologists,  MM.  Perrot  and 
Chipiez,  in  the  sixth  volume  of  their  work,  "  L'Ossuaire 
de  Crete."  M.  Perrot  consulted  M.  Houssay,  in  his 
capacity  of  zoologist,  in  regard  to  these  Mykenaean 
drawings,  which  bear,  as  M.  Houssay  states,  the  evidence 
of  having  been  designed  after  nature  by  one  who  knew 
the  things  in  life,  although  they  are  not  slavishly 
"  copied  "  from  nature.  These  early  Mykenaean  painters 
on  pottery  were  members  of  a  community  who  worshipped 


MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     131 

the  great  mother — "  Nature  " — as  Astarte  or  Aphrodite 
risen  from  the  foam  of  the  sea.  Being  sailors  and 
fishermen,  marine  life  was  even  more  familiar  to  them 
than  that  of  the  land,  and  they  placed  little  models  of 


FIGt  14. — Fanciful  designs  by  Mykenoean  artists,  showing  change  of  the  cuttle- 
fish (octopus  or  "  poulpe  ")  into  a  bull's  head  and  other  shapes. 

a,  Octopus  drawn  on  a  goblet  from  Crete,  the  arms  reduced  to  two,  the  eyes 

detached, 
b  and  c,  Bull's  head  variations  of  the  octopus,  from  designs  found  at  Koban 

in  the  Caucasus. 

d,  Spiral  treatment  of  the  arms  of  the  octopus  (a  pose  actually  seen  in  living 

specimens). 

e,  f,  Human  faces  painted  on  Cretan  jars  across  the  whole  width  of  the  neck, 

the  design  being  derived  from  the  octopus  with  detached  eyes  as  in  Fig.  a. 
Such  designs  survive  long  after  their  origin  is  forgotten,  as  (according  to 
M.  Houssay)  the  legend  of  the  barnacle  and  the  goose  survived  two 
thousand  years  after  the  Mykensean  drawings  assimilating  one  to  the 
other  had  been  forgotten. 

sea  animals  as  votive  offerings  in  the  temples  of  the 
great  mother,  and  also  honoured  her  in  decorating  their 
pottery  with  marine  creatures.  The  little  fish,  Hippo- 
campus, called  the  sea-horse,  the  sea-urchin,  the  octopus, 
the  argonaut  and  its  floating  cradle,  the  sea-anemone, 


132  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

and  the  butterfly-like  Pteropod,  were  subjects  used  by 
these  artists  for  which  they  found  terrestrial  counterparts. 
The  sea-horse  was  convertible  decoratively  into  a  true 
horse,  with  intermediate  phases  imagined  by  the  artists  ; 
the  sea-urchin  into  a  hedgehog,  the  sea-anemone  into  a 
flower,  and  the  Pteropod  into  a  true  butterfly.  These 
artists  loved  to  exercise  a  little  fancy  and  ingenuity. 
By  gradual  reduction  in  the  number  and  size  of  out- 
standing parts — a  common  rule  in  the  artistic  "  schematiz- 
ing "  or  "  conventional  simplification  "  of  natural  form — 
they  converted  the  octopus  and  the  argonaut,  with  their 
eight  arms,  into  a  bull's  head  with  a  pair  of  spiral  horns 
(Fig.  14).  In  the  same  spirit  it  seems  that  they 
observed  and  drew  the  barnacle  floating  on  timber  or 
thrown  up  after  a  storm  on  their  shores.  They  detected 
a  resemblance  in  the  marking  of  its  shells  to  the  plumage 
of  a  goose,  whilst  in  the  curvature  of  its  stalk  they  saw  a 
resemblance  to  the  long  neck  of  the  bird.  The  barnacle's 
jointed  plumose  legs  or  cirri  and  other  details  suggested 
points  of  agreement  with  the  feathers  of  the  bird.  They 
brought  the  barnacle  and  the  goose  together,  not  guided 
thereto  by  any  pre-existing  legend,  but  by  a  simple  and 
not  uncommon  artistic  desire  to  follow  up  a  superficial 
suggestion  of  similarity  and  to  conceive  of  intermediate 
connecting  forms.  Some  of  their  fanciful  drawings  with 
this  purpose  are  shown  in  Figs.  15,  16,  and  17.  These 
(excepting  the  drawing  of  the  barnacle  lying  within  its 
opened  shell)  are  copied  from  M.  Houssay's  paper  on  the 
subject,  and  were  taken  from  the  work  of  M.  Perrot  on 
Cretan  pottery. 

The  intention  of  the  artist  to  fantastically  insist  on 
intermediate  phases  between  goose  and  barnacle  is 
placed  beyond  doubt  by  certain  details.  For  instance, 
in  Fig.  1 6,  the  little  jointed  processes  on  the  back 


MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     133 


FIG.  15.— The  Goose 
and  the  Barnacle. 

A,  Drawing  of  a  Ship's 

Barnacle  attached 
to  a  piece  of  timber 
by  its  "  peduncle" 
or  stalk,  which  re- 
presents the  neck  of 
a  goose,  if  we  regard 
the  shell  -  covered 
region  as  the  goose's 
body.  From  a 
sketch  by  M.  Fred- 
eric Houssay  pub- 
lished in  the  "Revue 
Archaeologique," 
January  1895. 

B,  Copy  of  a  drawing  on 

an  ancient  Myken- 
sean  pot  found  in 
Crete,  and  figured 
by  M.  Perrot  in  his 
"Ossuairede  Crete" 
vol.  vi.  p.  936.  It 
is  a  fantastic  blend 
of  the  goose  and  the 
barnacle.  The  bar- 
nacle's stalk  is  given 

a  beak  and  an  eye  ;  the  body  of  the  bird  corresponds  to  the  shells  of  the 
barnacle  both  in  shape  and  marking.  There  are  no  wings  or  legs,  but 
the  curious  single  limb  which  I  have  marked  pe  is  obviously  the  same 
thing  as  that  marked  pe  in  figure  C,  which  represents  the  barnacle  when 
cut  open  so  as  to  show  the  structures  within  the  shell,  pe  is  the  rod-like 
body  at  the  end  of  which  the  seminal  duct  opens.  It  is  seen  in  the 
drawing  of  the  expanded  barnacle  (Fig.  10),  lying  between  the  two 
groups  of  six  forked  and  jointed  legs  or  "cirri." 

C,  A  correct  modern  drawing  of  a  ship's  barnacle,  with  the  shells  of  one  side 

removed  so  as  to  show  the  six  double  legs  of  one  side,  the  seminal  rod 
(pe),  and  the  internal  organs.  This  is  what  Sir  Robert  Moray  and  his 
mediaeval  predecessors  saw  on  opening  the  barnacle's  shell  and  described 
as  "  a  young  bird  complete  in  every  detail." 


134  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

of  the  goose  marked  a,  correspond  in  position  to  the 
cirri  or  legs  of  the  barnacle.  They  are  reduced  in 
number  to  two,  and  simplified  in  form  so  as  to  pass 
for  the  tips  of  the  wings  of  the  goose.  The  goose's 
own  feet  are  represented  in  their  natural  position.  The 
most  extraordinary  piece  of  resemblance  in  detail  is 
that  given  in  Fig.  15,  B,  which  is  a  copy  of  a  very 
much  "  barnaculized  "  goose  from  one  of  these  ancient 
dishes.  What  does  the  Mykenaean  artist  mean  to 


FIG.  16. — Copy  of  a  series  of  modified  geese  painted  on  an 
early  Mykemean  pot,  figured  by  M.  Perrot.  Each  has 
two  jointed  appendages  on  the  back,  which  suggest  the 
wing  feathers  of  the  bird  or  two  of  the  jointed  legs  (cirri) 
of  the  barnacle,  which  issue  in  life  from  this  part  of  the 
barnacle's  shell.  The  legs  of  the  geese  are  very  small 
and  absent  in  the  fifth.  The  markings  on  the  body 
differ  in  each  bird,  but  recall  the  shell  of  the  barnacle 
divided  into  several  valves  marked  with  parallel  stria- 
tions.  They  may  also  pass  for  the  plumage  of  the  bird. 

represent  by  the  strange  single  leg-like  limb  marked 
pe?  When  we  carefully  examine  the  barnacle's  soft 
body  concealed  by  its  shell,  it  becomes  obvious  that 
this  leg-like  thing  corresponds  to  the  single  stalk-like 
body,  ending  in  a  bunch  of  a  few  hairs  which  is 
marked  pe  in  Fig.  15,  C.  This  last-named  figure  is  a 
careful  modern  representation  of  the  soft  living  barnacle, 
as  seen  when  the  shells  of  one  side  are  removed.  The 
cylindrical  body  pe  of  Fig.  15,  C,  which  is  drawn  by 
the  Mykenaean  artist  on  an  exaggerated  scale  in 
Fig.  15,  B,  is  the  external  opening  of  the  seminal 


MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     135 


duct    of    the    barnacle.       It     is     remarkable     that     the 

Mykenaean  pottery-painter  had  observed  the  soft  "  fish  " 

of  the  barnacle  so  minutely  as  to  select  this  unpaired 

and  very  peculiar-looking  structure,  and  represent  it  of 

exaggerated  size  attached  in  its  proper 

position  on  the  barnacle-like  body  of  a 

goose.     This  very  striking  transference 

of  a  peculiar  and  characteristic  organ 

of  the  barnacle  to  the  body  of  the  goose 

by  the  artist  seems  not  to  have  been 

noticed  by  M.  Houssay. 


M.  Houssay  further  points  out  the 
existence  on  some  of  the  Mykenaean 
pottery  of  drawings  (see  "  L'Ossuaire 
de  Crete,"  by  MM.  Perrot  and  Chipiez) 
of  leaves  attached  to  tree-like  stems. 
These  leaves  (Fig.  I  8,  a,  b,  c)  exhibit  FIG.  17.—  Two  draw- 
the  same  markings  ("  venation  ")  which  ings  on  pottery  of 
we  see  on  the  bodies  of  the  geese  in  ™odififd  gee!f'  from 

T,.  ^  ...  .  ,  ,,  f        Perrot's     "  Ossuaire 

tig.  1  6,  especially  the  middle  one  of  de  Crete."  The  three 
the  five.  The  leaves  (or  fruits  ?)  copied  lines  above  the  back 
by  M.  Houssay  from  the  Mykensean  of  the  uPPer  fisure 

...  . 

pottery  are  attached  in  a  series  to  a 
stem  —  but  no  one,  at  present,  has 


probably      represent 

tFhe  lej  or  £rri  of 
the  barnacle,  which 


suggested    what    plant    it    is    which    is        are    represented    by 

represented.      The  corners  of  the  leaf      two  jointe<l  '  aPPend' 

r     .  ages    in    the    geese 

or   fruit  to   the   right   and  left  of  its       shown  in  Fig.  16. 
stalk  are  thrown  into   a   spiral  —  and 
the   half  leaf  or    half  fruit   represented   in    Fig.    1  8,   b, 
leads  us  on  to  that  drawn  in   Fig.  1  8,  c,  in  which  the 
spiral  corner  is  slightly  modified  in  curvature  so  as  to 
resemble  the  head  and  neck  of  the  goose  as  drawn  in 
Fig.    1  6.      Though   Fig.    18,    c,    is    as    yet    devoid    of 
legs  or  wing  feathers   (compare  Fig.    16,  d),  the  black 


136 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


FIG.  1 8. — Leaves  from 
the  tree,  drawn  on  a 
Mykenaean  pot  which, 
according  to  M.  Perrot, 
are  fancifully  designed 
so  as  to  assume  step  by 
step  (a,  b,  c)  the  form 
of  a  goose.  This  ap- 
pears either  to  represent 
the  tree  which,  accord- 
ing to  legend,  produced 
birds  as  buds  on  its 
branches,  or  to  be  a 
fanciful  design  which 
gave  rise  to  that  legend. 
The  artist's  intention  of 
making  the  leaf  gradu- 
ally pass  into  the  sem- 
blance of  a  goose,  is 
strongly  emphasized  by 
the  purely  fanciful 
"  venation  "  of  the 
leaf  which  agrees  with 
the  equally  fanciful  or- 
nament of  the  bodies  of 
the  geese  in  Fig.  16, 

.  especially  the  middle 
one  of  the  series. 


band  along  the  belly  with  the  band 
of  vertical  markings  above  it  agrees 
closely  with  the  design  on  the  body 
of  the  middle  goose  of  the  series 
drawn  in  Fig.  16.  As  these  are 
associated  in  the  decoration  of  the 
Mykenaean  artists,  it  is  fairly  evident 
that  the  intention  has  been  to  mani- 
pulate the  drawing  of  the  leaf  or 
fruit  so  as  to  make  it  resemble  the 
drawing  of  the  goose,  whilst  that  in 
its  turn  is  modified  so  as  to  empha- 
size or  idealize  its  points  of  resem- 
blance to  a  barnacle. 

It  is  true  enough  that  the  drawings 
from  Mykenaean  pots  here  submitted 
cannot  be  considered  as  a  complete 
demonstration  that  the  legend  of 
the  tree-goose  originated  with  these 
drawings.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  we  have  only  a  small 
number  of  examples  of  this  pottery 
surviving  from  a  thousand  years  B.C. 
It  is  probable  that  the  fanciful  de- 
corative design  of  a  master  artist  was 
copied  and  used  in  the  painting  of 
hundreds  of  pots  by  mere  workmen 
or  inferior  craftsmen,  and  that  more 
complete  and  impressive  designs 
showing  the  fanciful  transformation 
of  leaf  or  fruit  to  goose,  and  of  goose 
to  barnacle,  existed  both  before  and 
after  the  making  of  the  particular 
pots  and  jars  which  have  come 


MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     137 

down  to  us.  The  supposition  made  by  M.  Houssay 
(which  I  entirely  support)  is  that  some  later  Levantine 
people — to  whom  these  decorated  pots  or  copies  of 
their  decorations  became  known  either  in  the  regular 
way  of  trade  or  as  sailors'  "  curios  " — were  led  to  attempt 
an  explanation  of  the  significance  of  the  pictures  drawn 
upon  them,  and  in  accordance  with  a  well-known 
and  rooted  tendency — interpreted  the  fancies  of  the 
artist  as  careful  representations  of  astonishing  fact. 
The  existence  of  a  tree  which  produces  buds  which 
become  birds,  and  of  a  barnacle  which  becomes  trans- 
formed into  a  goose — is  the  matter-of-fact  interpreta- 
tion of  the  few  pictures  of  these  animals  which  have 
come  down  to  us,  modern  men,  painted  on  the  few  pots 
of  that  remote  Mykenaean  industry  now  in  our  museums. 
It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  in  the  vast  period  of  time 
between  1000  B.C.  and  1000  A.D.,  the  more  striking  of 
these  designs  had  been  copied  and  familiarized  in  some 
part  of  the  ancient  world.  It  is  true  that  we  do  not 
at  present  know  in  what  part :  we  have  not  yet  come 
across  these  designs  of  later  date  than  800  B.C.  The 
absence  of  the  story  of  the  tree-goose  from  Greek  and 
Roman  lore  is  striking.  Neither  Aristotle  nor  Herodotus 
knew  of  it,  although  it  has  been  erroneously  stated  that 
they  refer  to  it.  Yet  the  source  of  it  was  there  in  the 
Greek  isles  almost  under  their  noses  (if  one  may  speak 
of  the  noses  of  such  splendid  and  worshipful  men  of 
old)  in  the  artistic  work — otherwise  not  unknown  to  the 
Greeks — of  a  civilization  which  preceded  their  own  by 
hundreds  of  years.  There  is  other  and  ample  evidence 
— as  for  instance  that  of  the  representation  of  the  "  fly- 
ing gallop  "  (see  "  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  Second 
Series,  pp.  57  and  63),  showing  that  Mykenaean  art  had 
little  or  no  direct  effect  on  the  Hellenes,  although  the 
reputation  of  the  skill  of  the  old  race  in  metal  work 


138  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

came  through  many  generations  to  them.  Mykenaean 
art  seems  to  have  migrated  with  Mykenaean  settlers  to 
the  remote  region  of  the  Caucasus.  In  the  necropolis 
of  Koban  and  other  remote  settlements,  Mykenaean 
designs  in  bronze  and  gold — including  the  horse  in 
flying  gallop  and  octopods  transformed  to  bull's  heads — 
have  been  found  and  pictured  (Ernest  Chantre,  "Recherches 
anthropologique  dans  Caucase,"  4  vols.  :  Paris,  1886). 
They  are  believed  to  date  from  500  B.C.  It  is  possible 
that  in  such  remote  regions  or  in  some  of  the  Greek 
islands  the  pictures  of  the  tree-goose  and  the  barnacle 
may  have  survived  until  the  new  dispensation  —  that 
is,  until  the  days  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Once  we 
can  trace  either  the  pictures  or  the  legend  up  to  that 
point,  there  is  no  difficulty  about  admitting  the  radiation 
of  the  wonderful  story  from  that  centre  to  the  Jews  of 
the  Kabbalah,  to  Arabic  writers,  and  so  to  the  learned 
men  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  seats  of  learning 
throughout  Europe  and  a  great  part  of  Asia. 

Of  the  history  of  the  legend  during  two  thousand  years 
we  have  no  actual  knowledge.  It  remains  for  investiga- 
tion. But  undoubtedly  these  Mykenaean  pottery  paint- 
ings remove  the  origin  of  the  story  to  a  period  two 
thousand  years  older  than  that  of  the  Irish  monks. 

One  additional  fact  I  may  mention  as  to  the  exist- 
ence of  the  goose  and  barnacle  legend  in  the  East.  I 
am  informed  that  in  Java  there  is,  according  to  "  native  " 
story,  a  shell-fish  the  animal  of  which  becomes  trans- 
formed into  a  bird — said  to  be  a  kind  of  snipe — and 
flies  from  the  shell.  I  have  been  shown  the  shell  by  a 
Dutch  lady  who  has  lived  in  Java.  It  is  a  large  fresh- 
water mussel,  one  of  the  Unionidae.  I  have  failed  to 
obtain,  after  inquiry,  any  further  information  as  to  the 


MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     139 

prevalence  or  origin  of  this  story  in  Java,  and  hope  that 
some  one  who  reads  this  page  may  be  able  to  help  me. 

Before  leaving  the  story  of  the  goose  and  the 
barnacle,  the  explanation  of  the  myth  given  by  Prof. 
Max  Muller  in  his  lectures  on  the  science  of  language 
nearly  fifty  years  ago,  should  be  cited.  It  is  an  excellent 
example  of  the  misuse  of  hypothesis  in  investigation, 
and  the  attempt  to  explain  something  which  we  cannot 
get  at  and  examine  by  making  a  supposition  which  it  is 
even  more  difficult  to  examine  and  test. 

Max  Muller  made  use  of  the  observation — a  perfectly 
true  and  interesting  one — that  a  whole  people  or  folk 
will  be  led  to  a  wrong  conclusion,  or  to  a  belief  in  some 
strange  and  marvellous  occurrence,  by  the  misunder- 
standing of  a  single  word,  attributing  to  that  word  a 
sense  which  now  fits  the  sound,  but  one  quite  different 
from  that  with  which  the  word  was  originally  used  in  the 
tradition  or  history  concerned.  Words  are,  in  fact,  mis- 
interpreted after  a  lapse  of  time,  or  when  imported  from 
distant  lands,  just  as  we  have  seen  that  pictures  and 
sculpture  often  have  been.  For  instance,  Richard 
Whittington,  who  was  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in  1398 
and  other  later  years,  did  business  in  French  goods,  which 
was  spoken  of  in  the  city  as  "  achat,"  and  pronounced 
"  akat."  Hence  in  later  centuries,  when  the  prevalence 
of  Norman  French  was  forgotten,  it  was  stated  (in  a  play 
produced  in  1605)  that  Whittington  owed  his  fortune  to 
"  a  cat,"  and  the  story  of  the  wonderful  cat  and  its  deeds 
was  built  up  "  line  upon  line  "  or  "  lie  upon  lie."  Max 
Muller  suggested  that  the  story  of  the  barnacle  and  the 
goose  could  be  similarly  explained.  The  brant  or  brent 
goose  which  frequents  the  Irish  shore  was,  he  supposes, 
called  "  berniculus "  by  the  Latin-speaking  clergy  as  a 
diminutive  of  Hibernicus,  meaning  "  Irish."  There  is 


140  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

absolutely   no   evidence   to  support    this.      Max    M tiller 
supposes  that    Hibernicus   became  "  Hiberniculus,"  and 
then    dropping   the   first   syllable    became  "  Berniculus," 
and  that  this  word  was  applied  to  the  "  Irish  goose."     It 
might  have  been,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  it 
was.     Meanwhile  the  ship's  barnacle  and  other  sea-shells 
were  called  in  the  Celtic  tongue  "  barnagh,"  "  berniche," 
or  "  bernak,"  and   the  hermit-crab  is  still  called  on  the 
Breton    coast,    "  Bernard    Thermite,"    a    modification    of 
"  bernak  Thermite."     There  is  no  doubt  that  the  word 
"  barnacle "    as    applied   to   the    stalked  shell-fish  grow- 
ing on    ships'    bottoms  is    a    diminutive    of   the   Celtic 
word    "  bernak,"    or    "  barnak."      It    became    in     Latin 
"  barnacus,"  and  then  the  diminutive  "  barnaculus,"  and 
so  "  barnacle "  was    used    for    the   little    stalked    shell- 
fish encrusting  old  timber.      According  to   Max  Miiller, 
later  generations  thus  found  the  two  animals,  goose  and 
shell-fish,    called     by    the    same     name,    "  bernikle,"    or 
"barnacle."     "Why?"    they  would   ask:   and   then   (he 
supposes)  they  would  compare  the  two  and  detect  points 
of  resemblance,  until  at  last  a  very  devout  and  astute 
monk    had    the   happy   thought    of   declaring    that   the 
Hibernian    goose  was  called  "  berniculus,"  or  "  barnak- 
goose,"  because  it  did  not  breed  from  eggs  as  other  birds 
do,  but  is  hatched  out  of  the  shell  of  the  shell-fish,  also 
very  naturally  and  rightly  called  "  berniculus,"  or  barnak, 
as   any  one   may  see    by  carefully  examining    the  fish 
contained   in   the  shell  of  the  barnacle  or  little  stalked 
"  barnak,"  which  has  the  complete  form  of  a  bird.     Since, 
however,  it  is  not  a  bird,  but  a  fish  in  nature  and  origin, 
this  holy  man  declared   that  the  "  berniculus,"  or  "  bar- 
nacle-goose," may  be  eaten  on  fast  days.      Max   Miiller's 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  story  is  too  adventurous 
in  its  unsupported  assumption  that  the  particular  goose 
associated  with  the  story  was  peculiarly   Irish,  or  that, 


MORE  AS  TO  THE  BARNACLE  AND  GOOSE     141 

in  fact,  any  kind  of  goose  was  so.  He  also  put  aside 
the  evidence  of  Father  Damien  (earlier  than  the  Irish 
story  of  Giraldus)  referring  the  goose-tree  to  an  island 
in  the  Indies,  and  the  report  cited  in  the  Oriental 
book  the  "  Zohar."  However  plausible  Max  Miiller's 
theory  may  have  appeared,  it  absolutely  crumbles  and 
disappears  in  the  presence  of  the  Mykenaean  pictures  of 
"barnaculized"  geese,  and  trees  budding  birds — two 
thousand  years  older  than  the  Irish  record,  and  nearly 
three  thousand  years  earlier  than  the  essay  of  the  charm- 
ing and  persuasive  professor. 


CHAPTER    XVI 
SEA-SHELLS   ON   THE   SEASHORE 

ANY  hard  coat  or  covering  enclosing  a  softer  material 
is  called  a  "shell" — thus  we  speak  of  an  egg-shell, 
a  nut-shell,  a  bomb-shell,  and  the  shell  of  a  lobster.  But 
there  is  a  special  and  restricted  use  of  the  word  to  in- 
dicate as  "  true  "  and  "  real "  shells  the  beautiful  cover- 
ings made  for  their  protection  by  the  soft,  mobile  animals 
called  Molluscs.  These  animals  expand  and  contract 
first  this  and  then  that  region  of  the  body  by  squeezing 
the  blood  within  it  (by  means  of  the  soft  muscular  coat 
of  the  sac-like  body)  into  one  part  or  another  in  turn. 
There  is  not  enough  blood  to  distend  the  whole  animal, 
and  accordingly  one  part  is  swollen  out  and  protrudes 
from  the  shell,  whilst  another  shrinks  as  the  blood  is 
propelled  here  or  there  by  the  compressing  muscular 
coat.  These  creatures  are  the  Molluscs,  a  name  which 
has  come  into  general  use  (and  has  even  served  as  the 
title  for  a  stage-play),  as  well  as  being  the  zoologist's 
title  for  the  great  division  of  animals  which  they  constitute. 

They  are  sometimes  called  "  shell-fish,"  but  this  is 
no  good  as  a  distinctive  name — since  it  is  applied  in 
the  fish-trade  to  lobsters,  crabs,  and  shrimps  as  well  as 
to  Molluscs.  Lobsters,  crabs,  and  shrimps  are  Crustacea, 
and  totally  different  in  their  architecture  and  their 
mechanism  from  Molluscs.  Familiar  examples  of 

Molluscs     are    the     oyster,    the     mussel,    the    various 

143 


SEA-SHELLS  ON  THE  SEASHORE  143 

"clams,"  and,  again,  the  snails,  periwinkles,  whelks, 
and  limpets.  It  is  the  shells  of  these  animals  which 
are  "  true  "  shells  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  used 
by  "  collectors  "  of  shells,  and  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
speak  of  "  the  shells  of  the  seashore."  These  shells  are 
usually  very  hard,  solid  things,  made  up  of  layers  of 
lime-salts  and  horny  matter  mixed,  and  they  remain  for 
a  long  time  undestroyed,  washed  about  by  the  currents 
of  the  sea,  and  thrown  up  on  to  the  beach,  after  the  soft, 
oozy  creature  which  formed  them — chemically  secreted 
them  on  its  soft  skin — has  decomposed  and  disappeared. 
They  are  readily  distinguished  into  two  sorts — (i)  those 
which  are  formed  in  pairs,  or  "  bivalves,"  each  member 
of  the  pair  being  called  a  "valve";  and  (2)  those  which 
are  single,  or  "  univalves,"  often  spirally  twisted,  as  are 
those  of  snails  and  whelks,  but  sometimes  cap-like  or 
basin-like,  as  are  the  shells  of  the  limpets.  There  is  not 
so  great  a  difference  between  bivalve  and  univalve  shells 
as  there  seems  to  be  at  first  sight.  For  if  you  examine 
the  pair  of  shells  of  a  mussel  or  a  clam  when  they  are 
quite  fresh,  you  will  find  that  the  valves  are  joined 
together  by  a  horny,  elastic  substance,  and  are,  in  fact, 
only  one  horny  shell,  or  covering,  which  is  made  hard 
by  lime  deposited  on  the  right  and  on  the  left,  as  two 
plates  or  valves,  but  is  left  soft  and  uncalcified  along  a 
line  where  these  two  valves  meet,  so  as  to  allow  them 
to  move  and  gape,  as  it  were,  on  an  elastic  hinge.  It  is 
the  fact  that  the  two  valves  of  the  shell  of  the  bivalve, 
lying  right  and  left  on  its  body,  correspond  to  the  single 
shell  of  the  snail  or  limpet,  which  differs  from  the  bivalve- 
shell  in  not  being  divided  along  the  back  by  a  soft  part 
into  right  and  left  pieces.  That  there  is  this  real  agree- 
ment between  bivalve  and  univalve  molluscs  is  quite 
evident  when  we  examine  the  soft  animal  which  forms  the 
shell  and  is  protected  by  it. 


144  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Though  "  shells  "  are  often  numerous  on  parts  of  the 
seashore,  some  beaches  (as,  for  instance,  at  Falmouth, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Eden  of  St.  Andrews,  and  at  Herm 
in  the  Channel  Islands)  being  so  placed  in  regard  to  the 
currents  and  waves  of  the  sea  that  great  quantities  of 
shells  of  dozens  of  species  are  thrown  up,  and  even 


c. 


d 


FIG.  19.— Some  British  Marine  Bivalve  Molluscs. 


a,  The  smaller  Piddock,  Pholas  parva,  which   bores  into   chalk,  clay, 

and  hard  rock.     Natural  size. 

b,  The  Razor- shell,  Solen  siliqua.     The  muscular  foot  is  seen  protruding 

from  the  shell.     One-third  the  natural  size,  linear. 

c,  Venus  verrucosa.     Natural  size. 

d,  Cardium  echinatum.     Two-thirds  the  natural  size,  linear. 

e,  Pinna  pectinata,  the  "  cappy  longy."    One-fifth  of  the  natural  size,  linear. 

"  make  up  "  the  beach,  yet  there  are  not  so  very  many 
Molluscs  which  live  commonly  on  the  shore  between  tide- 
marks.  The  shells  which  are  accumulated  as  shell- 
beaches  have  come  from  animals  which  lived  in  quantity 
at  depths  of  ten  or  twenty  fathoms,  whence  they  can  be 
brought  up  alive  by  the  dredge.  There  are,  however, 
certain  bivalves  and  certain  univalves  which  are  com- 
monly to  be  found  in  the  living  state  between  tide-marks. 


SEA-SHELLS  ON  THE  SEASHORE          145 

You  will  not  find  the  oyster  there  on  our  own  coast,  but 
in  Australia  they  have  picnic  parties  where  every  guest 
provides  himself  with  a  hammer  and  a  bottle  of  vinegar 
and  a  pepper-pot,  and  at  low  tide  proceeds  to  chip  the 
oysters  off  the  rocks  on  which  they  grow  tightly  fixed, 
and  to  eat  them  "  right  away  "  before  they  have  time  to 
lose  their  good  temper  and  sweetness  !  In  Jamaica  they 
show  you  oysters  apparently  growing  on  trees  high  up 
in  the  air,  but  they  are  dead,  having  attached  themselves 
to  the  branches  of  a  young  tree  which  dipped  into  the 
water.  Once  fixed  there,  they  were  unable  to  move  as 
the  tree  grew  and  carried  them  up  with  its  branches 
above  the  sea-level. 

The  only  bivalve  at  all  common  and  visible  to  the 
eye  between  tide-marks  is  the  common  or  edible  sea- 
mussel,  which  is  attached  in  purple  clusters  to  the  rocks 
(as  in  North  Cornwall),  or  forms  a  wide-spreading  pave- 
ment, called  a  "  scalp,"  of  as  much  as  an  acre  in  extent, 
on  which  thousands  of  mussels  lie  side  by  side.  But  by 
digging  in  the  sand  and  mud  between  tides  there  are 
other  living  bivalves  to  be  found,  which  burrow  more  or 
less  deeply.  The  razor-shell  (Fig.  19,  b)  is  one  of  these 
(see  p.  80).  Often  (as  at  Teignmouth  and  Barmouth) 
we  find  "  cockles  "  buried  in  the  sand,  and  those  delicate, 
smooth  bivalves  not  an  inch  long,  white  outside  and 
purple  within,  which  are  made  into  soup  at  Naples  and 
are  called  "  vongoli,"  but  have  no  English  name.  Other 
"clrms  "  (Tapes,  which  is  eaten  in  France,  even  in  Paris, 
and  Mya,  and  Scrobicularia  which  lives  in  black  mud) 
may  be  dug  up,  but  they  are  devoid  of  English  names 
because  we  do  not  eat  them  ;  hence  I  have  to  speak  of 
them  by  their  Latin  scientific  names.  As  to  univalves, 
there  are  three  which  are  found  almost  everywhere  on 
our  coasts  where  there  are  rocks,  namely,  the  periwinkles 
10 


146  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

(one  species  of  which  actually  lives  above  high  tide- 
mark),  the  limpet,  and  the  dog- whelk.  A  small  species 
of  top-shell  or  trochus  is  also  very  common,  and  so  is 
the  chiton,  or  armadillo-shell,  which,  though  really  the 
most  primitive  and  nearest  representative  of  the  ancestors 
of  all  univalve  molluscs,  yet  has  its  own  shell  of  a  very 
peculiar  character  (sometimes  with  very  minute  eyes — 
true  eyes — dotted  about  on  it),  and  always  divided  trans- 
versely to  its  length  (not  right  and  left)  into  eight  separate 
pieces,  which,  indeed,  seem  to  be  really  separate,  in- 
dependent little  shells,  corresponding  to  eight  segments 
like  the  segments  of  a  shrimp  or  an  earth-worm. 

Let  us  now  compare  the  soft  animal  of  one  of  the 
bivalves — say  the  common  cockle — with  the  soft  animal 
to  which  a  univalve  shell  belongs — say  the  limpet.  They 
can  be  kept  alive  and  watched  in  a  finger-glass  of  sea- 
water,  and  can  be  removed  from  their  shells  and  examined 
more  closely — by  killing  them  by  dipping  them  for  half 
a  minute  into  very  hot  (not  boiling)  water.  Both  these 
molluscs — like  all  others — adhere  tightly  at  one  place  to 
the  shell.  They  cannot  be  removed  from  it  alive,  and 
make  a  new  shell  or  creep  back  into  the  old  one,  as  can 
some  worms  (e.g.  the  serpula)  and  other  creatures  which 
form  a  hard  shell  to  live  in.  Certain  muscles  of  the  soft 
mollusc  are  so  closely  fixed  to  the  shell  that  they  must 
be  torn  in  order  to  separate  it.  These  muscles  draw 
the  two  valves  of  the  bivalve  together,  and  shut  it  tight. 
You  can  verify  this  whenever  the  oyster-man  "  opens  " 
an  oyster  for  you.  When  at  rest  the  shells  gape,  being 
kept  open  by  the  horny,  elastic  hinge-piece.  Some 
bivalves  (for  instance,  the  common  scallop,  or  pilgrim's 
shell,  which  can  often  be  dredged  in  shallow  water,  and 
of  which  a  large  kind  is  sold  in  the  London  fish  shops) 
actually  swim  in  the  sea-water  by  aid  of  this  mechanism, 


SEA-SHELLS  ON  THE  SEASHORE  147 

the  shells  opening  by  elasticity  and  being  closed  by  the 
muscle  joining  one  to  the  other,  at  rapid  intervals,  flapping 
like  the  wings  of  a  butterfly. 

In  the  univalves  the  attachment  of  the  muscle  to  the 
shell  gives  a  fixed  point  for  all  the  movements  of  the 
animal.  The  limpet  has  a  well-marked  head  and  neck — 
a  pair  of  sensitive  tentacles,  and  a  small  pair  of  dark- 
coloured  eyes.  The  mouth  is  at  the  end  of  a  sort  of 
short  snout.  Just  within  the  mouth,  and  capable  of 
being  pushed  forwards  to  the  level  of  the  lips,  is  a  most 
extraordinary  rasp.  It  consists  of  a  long  ribbon,  beset 
with  fine  horny  teeth — very  sharp  and  complicated  in 
pattern.  The  ribbon  extends  far  back  into  the  body, 
and  is  worn  away  by  constant  use  at  the  orifice  of  the 
mouth.  It  grows  forward,  like  one  of  our  finger-nails, 
as  it  wears  out,  and  a  new,  unworn  portion  takes  the 
place  of  that  worn  away.  It  is  constantly  in  use  to  rasp 
and  bring  into  the  mouth  the  particles  of  the  seaweed 
on  which  the  limpet  feeds.  It  is  easy  to  remove  this 
rasping  ribbon  with  a  needle  or  pen-knife,  and  examine 
it  with  a  microscope.  Every  one  of  the  hundreds  of 
kinds  of  univalve  molluscs  has  this  ribbon-rasp,  and  its 
teeth  are  of  different  patterns  in  the  various  kinds.  It  is 
worked  by  very  powerful  little  muscles,  backwards  and 
forwards,  and  is  strong  enough  in  the  whelks  to  bore  a 
round  hole  into  other  shells  (for  instance,  that  of  the 
oyster),  when  the  whelk  proceeds  to  eat  the  soft  animal, 
whose  protecting  shell  has  been  thus  penetrated.  Some 
of  the  large  marine  snails  produce  a  poisonous  secretion 
from  the  mouth,  which  renders  their  attack  with  the 
ribbon-rasp  all  the  more  deadly  to  other  marine  creatures. 
The  cuttle-fishes  and  octopods,  which  are  molluscs  too, 
possess,  like  the  univalve  limpets,  snails,  and  whelks,  this 
terrible  ribbon-rasp  in  the  mouth.  It  is  an  indication  of 


148  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

a  common  parentage    or    ancestral    relationship    in   the 
forms  which  possess  it. 

The  cockle  (Fig.  19,  d),  to  which  we  now  turn,  has  not 
got  a  ribbon-rasp,  nor  anything  of  the  kind.  It  has  a 
mouth  with  four  flapper-like  lips,  but  no  projecting  head, 
no  eyes,  no  biting  mechanism,  nor  have  any  of  the 
bivalves,  excepting  a  few  which  like  the  scallop  have  a 
series  of  eyes  on  the  edge  of  the  soft  mantle  or  flap 
which  lines  the  shell.  This  constitutes  a  greater  difference 
between  bivalves  and  the  univalves  than  does  the  shape 
of  the  shell.  They  are  a  very  quiescent,  peaceful  lot, 
feeding  on  microscopic  floating  plants  (diatoms  and 
such),  which  are  drawn  to  the  mouth  by  currents  of 
water  set  going  by  millions  of  vibrating  hairs  arranged 
on  four  soft  plates  hanging  under  the  protecting  arch  of 
the  shell,  and  called  in  the  oyster — in  which  bivalve  most 
people  know  them — the  "  beard." 

The  limpet  adheres  to  rocks  by  a  great  disk-like  mass 
of  muscle,  which  is  called  "  the  foot."  It  is  really  the 
whole  ventral  surface,  and  it  can  loosen  its  hold,  and,  by 
curious  ripples  of  contraction,  cause  the  animal  to  creep 
or  glide  over  the  rock.  At  low  tide  the  limpet  is  exposed 
to  the  air,  and  remains  motionless,  but  when  the  tide  is 
up  it  makes  a  small  excursion  in  search  of  food,  never 
going  more  than  a  foot  or  two  from  the  spot  which  it 
has  chosen,  and  returning  to  it,  so  that  in  the  course  of 
time  it  actually  wears  away  a  sort  of  cup  or  depression 
at  this  spot — if  the  rock  is  not  of  exceptional  hardness. 
The  word  "  foot "  is  applied  to  the  ventral  disk-like 
surface  of  the  limpet,  because  in  many  univalves  this 
region  becomes  drawn  out,  and  is  connected  by  a  com- 
paratively narrow  and  nipped-in  stalk  or  pillar  with  the 
rest  of  the  animal.  This  occurs  in  the  univalves  which 


SEA-SHELLS  ON  THE  SEASHORE  149 

have  large  spiral  shells,  into  which  the  whole  of  the  soft 
animal  can  be  deeply  withdrawn,  which  is  not  the  case 
with  the  limpet.  You  may  find  on  the  shore  at  Torquay 
a  sea-snail  (Natica),  in  which  the  animal  is  quite  invisible, 
drawn  far  up  into  the  shell.  Place  this  in  sea-water  and 
watch  it.  Soft  semi-transparent  lobes  begin  to  issue 
from  the  mouth  of  the  shell,  part  of  the  soft  distensible 
foot  appears  swelling  out  and  growing  bigger  and 
bigger,  and  soft  folds  spread  out  from  the  mouth 
of  the  shell,  and  gently  creep  over  it,  and  completely 
envelop  it ;  the  foot  begins  to  grip  the  bottom  of  the 
vessel,  and  the  animal  "crawls."  At  last,  swelling 
out  from  the  other  folds  of  soft  but  tense  "  molluscan  " 
substance,  the  head  and  its  tentacles  emerge.  Touch 
the  animal  and  it  shrinks  rapidly,  disappearing  into 
the  shell. 

It  used  to  be  thought  (about  twenty-five  years  ago) 
that  the  molluscs  expand  their  bodies  in  this  manner  by 
taking  water,  through  definite  apertures  provided  with 
valves,  into  their  blood,  and  that,  having  thus  swelled 
themselves  out,  they  could  shrink  and  reduce  themselves 
by  pouring  out  again  the  in-taken  water.  The  behaviour 
of  some  other  marine  animals,  namely  the  sea-anemones, 
which  really  do  act  in  this  way,  made  this  explanation 
of  the  swelling  and  shrinking  of  molluscs  seem  probable. 
It  was  also  known  that  the  star-fishes  and  sea-urchins 
actually  do  take  in  the  sea-water  into  a  system  of  vessels 
connected  with  their  wonderful  sucker-bearing  tentacles. 
But  it  turned  out  on  close  examination  that  the  molluscs 
do  not  take  in  or  shed  out  water  in  this  way.  A  hole, 
which  was  thought  to  let  in  water  into  the  blood  of  sea- 
snails,  was  shown  to  be  only  the  opening  of  a  great  slime- 
gland.  In  the  case  of  some  bivalves  which  have  red- 
blood  corpuscles,  I  showed  that  the  blood  is  never  made 


ISO  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

paler,  nor  are  the  red  corpuscles  shed  during  the  great 
distensions  and  contractions  of  the  body.  Measurements 
were  made  to  determine  the  removal  of  water  from  a 
glass  jar  by  an  expanding  sea-snail,  and  it  was  found 
that  none  is  removed  or  taken  up ;  in  fact,  the  whole  of 
what  is  very  often  an  astonishingly  large  and  bulky 
distension  of  the  foot,  or  of  lobes  of  the  body,  and  the 
subsequent  rapid  shrinking  of  the  same  parts,  depend 
entirely  on  the  blood  being  injected  from  the  rest  of  the 
body  into  the  swelling  part,  and  squeezed  from  it  into 
the  depleted  region  when  the  swollen  part  shrinks  again. 
The  firm,  opaque  shell  hides  from  view  the  change  of 
shape  of  the  concealed  body,  and  we  see  only  the  dis- 
tended foot  or  other  lobes  which  project  from  the 
shell. 

The  cockle  has  a  "  foot "  of  a  very  curious  scythe-like 
shape,  usually  carried  bent  up  between  the  two  valves  of 
the  shell.  Those  who  rightly  like  to  confirm  statements 
about  unfamiliar  animals  can  do  so  by  buying  a  cockle 
or  two  at  the  fishmonger's.  Some  bivalves  (the  Noah's- 
ark-shell,  called  "  Area,"  and  a  few  others)  have  a  great  flat 
foot,  like  that  of  the  univalves,  and  crawl  about  on  it. 
But  in  most  bivalves  it  is  curiously  elongated  and 
modified,  for  the  purpose  of  burrowing  into  sand  by 
vigorous  strokes,  and  in  some  it  is  suppressed  altogether, 
as  in  the  oyster.  The  cockle  is  remarkable  for  the  fact 
that  when  placed  on  a  board  or  a  rock  it  will  give  such  a 
vigorous  kick  with  its  bent  foot  as  to  throw  itself  up 
a  yard  or  so  into  the  air.  A  naturalist  (Stutchbury) 
dredging  in  Port  Jackson,  Australia,  many  years  ago  was 
overjoyed  at  discovering  in  his  net  three  specimens  of  a 
very  peculiar  kind  of  cockle  (Trigonia),  which  was  till 
then  only  known  in  the  fossil  state  from  the  oolite  strata 
of  Europe.  He  placed  the  three  novelties  on  the  seat  of 


SEA-SHELLS  ON  THE  SEASHORE  151 

his  boat,  and  was  looking  at  other  things  when  he  heard 
a  click-like  sound,  then  another.  He  turned  his  head 
and  saw  that  two  of  his  newly-discovered  "  living  fossils  " 
had  jumped  overboard,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
the  third  perform  the  same  feat ! 


CHAPTER    XVII 
SAND-HOPPERS 

WHEREVER  there  is  a  sandy  seashore  with  here 
and  there  masses  of  dead  seaweed  and  coral- 
lines thrown  up  by  the  waves,  you  will  find  sand-hoppers 
feeding  on  the  debris.  They  are  crustaceans,  like  crabs, 
shrimps,  and  barnacles,  but  in  general  aspect  resemble 
enormous  fleas.  I  hope  that  this  comparison  will  not 
enable  any  reader  at  once  to  picture  the  less  familiar 
by  the  more  familiar.  A  good-sized  sand-hopper  is 
about  half  an  inch  long,  and  jumps  not  by  means  of  a 
specially  large  pair  of  legs  as  the  flea  does,  but  by  the 
stroke  of  the  hind  body,  the  jointed  rings  of  which  are 
carried  curled  downwards  and  ready  to  give  a  sudden 
blow.  The  sand-hopper  (Fig.  20,  a)  has  some  of  the  rings 
or  segments  of  the  mid-body  distinct,  and  not  fused  with 
those  of  the  head  or  overhung  by  a  great  shield  as  in 
the  lobster,  crab,  and  shrimp.  His  walking  legs  and 
jaw-legs  are  also  not  quite  of  the  same  shape,  though 
similar  to  those  of  a  lobster,  and  his  two  little  black 
eyes  are  not  mounted  on  stalks,  but  are  flush  with  the 
surface  of  the  head.  There  are  two  quite  distinct  kinds 
of  sand-hopper  which  live  in  crowds  together  on  our 
sandy  shores.  They  are  not  very  different,  but  still  are 
distinguished  by  naturalists  from  one  another ;  one  is 
called  Talitrus  (Fig.  20,  a),  the  other  Orchestia  (Fig.  20,  b). 

They  are  very  similar  in  appearance  and  structure  to  a 

152 


SAND-HOPPERS 


153 


fresh-water  creature  common  in  weedy  streams,  which 
has  no  English  name  (except  the  general  one  of  "  fresh- 
water shrimp  "),  and  is  called  by  naturalists  Gammarus. 

In  the  open  sea  there  are  many  hundreds  of  kinds 
of  small  crustaceans  resembling  the  sand-hoppers  in 
their  compressed  (not  flattened)  shape  of  body  and  in 
the  details  of  their  legs  and  the  grouping  of  the  joints 
of  the  body. 
Many  of  the 
smallest  crusta- 
ceans which 
swarm  in  the 
surface  waters  of 
the  sea  and  form 
part  of  that  float- 
ing population, 
mostly  of  small 

transparent       or  &•  b. 

iridescent  and 
blue  creatures, 
which  we  call  the 
"  plankton,"  or 
"  surface  -  float- 
ing "  population, 

and  may  be  gathered  by  towing  a  very  fine  net  behind  a 
boat  on  a  quiet  day,  can  produce  flashes  of  light  which  are 
vivid  enough  when  seen  at  night.  They  contribute,  to- 
gether with  jelly-fish  and  the  teeming  millions  of  minute 
bladder-like  Noctiluca,  and  other  unicellular  animalcules, 
to  produce  that  wonderful  display  seen  from  time  to  time 
on  our  coasts,  and  called  "  the  phosphorescence  of  the 
sea."  These  minute  crustaceans  produce  flashes  of  light 
by  suddenly  squeezing  from  pits  or  glands  in  the  skin 
a  secretion  which  is  chemically  acted  on  (probably 


FIG.  20. — a,  Talitrus  locusta,  b,  Orchestia  littorea, 
the  two  common  kinds  of  "sand-hopper."  Of  the 
natural  size,  c,  A  kind  of  small  lobster  which 
burrows  in  the  sand,  Callianassa  subterranea. 
About  two-thirds  the  natural  size,  linear. 


154  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

oxidized)  by  the  sea-water,  the  chemical  action  setting 
up  light-vibrations,  but  not  the  usual  excess  of  heat- 
vibrations  to  which  we  are  accustomed  when  light 
accompanies  ordinary  "  burning  "  or  "  combustion." 

Other  crustaceans  of  several  kinds,  of  an  inch  and 
more  in  length — transparent,  delicate  creatures,  re- 
sembling small  prawns  in  appearance — also  produce 
light.  Some  of  them  are  known  by  names  referring  to 
this  fact,  such  as  Lucifer  (light-bearer)  and  Nyctiphanes 


FIG.  21.— A  Phosphorescent  Shrimp  (Euphausia  pellucida). 
The  lamp-like  phosphorescent  organs  are  numbered 
i  to  6.  There  is  another  on  the  outer  edge  of  the 
stalked  eye,  making  seven  in  all  on  each  side  of  the 
animal,  g,  points  to  the  hindermost  gill,  enlarged. 

(night-shiner).  They  possess  special  lantern-like  knobs 
scattered  about  on  the  body,  which  have  transparent 
lenses,  and  resemble  small  bull's-eye  lanterns.  Some 
have  a  row  of  seven  lanterns  on  each  side  of  the  body 
(Fig.  2  i),  but  one  kind  has  as  many  as  I  50  dotted  about. 
These  lanterns  were  only  a  few  years  ago  thought  to 
be  eyes,  and  their  elaborate  microscopic  structure  was 
described  as  that  of  an  eye.  Of  course,  this  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  dead  preserved  specimens  were  studied,  and 
not  the  living  animal.  Some  twenty  years  ago  I 
witnessed  a  most  impressive  exhibition  of  these  phos- 
phorescent shrimps  at  the  house  of  my  friend  Sir  John 


SAND-HOPPERS  155 

Murray,  of  the  "  Challenger,"  at   Millport,  on  the  Clyde. 
He  had  obtained  them  (the  kind  called   Nyctiphanes)  in 
great    quantities  at  a  depth  of  ninety  fathoms    in    the 
great    Scotch    fiord,    and    amongst    other    curious    facts 
about  them  had  shown  that  they  enter  Loch  Fyne  in 
vast  .numbers,  and  are  the  special    nourishment  of  the 
celebrated   Loch  Fyne  herrings.      It  had    been    noticed 
that  the  intestine  of  the  plump,  well-fed  herrings  is  full 
of  a  deep-black  substance,  and  Sir  John  Murray  showed 
that  this  was  the  black,  indigestible  pigment  of  the  eyes 
of  the  hundreds  of  phosphorescent  shrimps  swallowed  by 
these  favoured  fish,  which  owe  their  fine  quality  to  their 
special  opportunity  for  feeding  in  the  depths  of  the  loch 
on    the    exceptionally   abundant     and    nutritious    light- 
producing  crustaceans  !      At  night  my  friend  showed  me 
a  large  glass  vessel  holding  four  or  five  gallons,  in  which 
were    a    hundred    or  so  of  the  phosphorescent  shrimps 
swimming  around.      We   turned  out  the  lamps  of  the 
room,  and   all  was  dark.      Then  a  gentle  tap  was  given 
to  the  jar,  and  each  little  crustacean  lit  up,  as  though 
by  order,  a  row  of  seven  minute  lamps  on  each  side  of 
its  body,  swimming  along  meanwhile,  and  reminding  one 
of   a    passenger  steamer,  as    seen  from  the  shore,  as  it 
glides  along  at  night  with  its  lights  showing  through  a 
row    of   cabin    windows.        The    shrimps'    lights    shone 
steadily    for    a    minute    or    so,   then    ceased,    and    had 
to  be    lit    up    again    by   again    signalling    their   owners 
by   knocking   on   the   glass.       These   little   lamps,   with 
their    bull's-eye    lenses,   are    far    more    elaborate    struc- 
tures   than    the  glands    which    in    other   cases   cause   a 
flash  by  discharging  a  luminous  secretion  into  the  water. 
They     are     even     more     elaborate     than     the     internal 
permanent    phosphorescent  structure  of    the  glow-worm 
(an  insect,  not  a  crustacean),  which  has  no  condensing 
lens. 


156  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

I  have  mentioned  these  phosphorescent  organs  of 
small  and  smallest  crustaceans  because  not  many  years 
ago  a  French  naturalist,  my  friend  Professor  Giard, 
found  that  many  of  the  sand-hoppers  on  the  great  sandy 
shore  near  Boulogne  are  phosphorescent.  A  year  or 
two  later  I  found  them  myself  on  the  shore  above  tide- 
mark  at  Ouistreham  (Westerham),  near  Caen,  where 
they  had  actually  been  mistaken  for  glow-worms !  It 
was  easy  at  night  to  pick  up  a  dozen  phosphorescent 
sand-hoppers  during  a  stroll  of  five  or  ten  minutes  on 
the  sands.  Yet  I  have  never  seen  them  nor  heard  of 
their  being  seen  on  the  English  coast,  and  one  of  the 
results  which  I  hope  for  in  mentioning  them  herfc  is  that 
some  of  my  readers  will  discover  them  on  British  sands 
and  let  me  know.  The  remarkable  fact  about  the 
luminous  sand-hoppers  is  that  they  have  no  apparatus 
for  producing  light,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  do  not  pro- 
duce it !  Their  luminosity  is  a  disease,  and  is  due  (as 
was  shown  by  that  much-beloved  teacher  and  dis- 
coverer the  late  Professor  Giard)  to  the  infection  of  their 
blood  by  a  bacillus.  Hence  it  is  only  here  and  there 
that  you  see  the  brilliant  greenish  ball  of  light  on  the 
sand  due  to  a  phosphorescent  sand-hopper.  And  when 
you  pick  it  up  you  find  that  the  poor  little  thing  is  quite 
feeble  and  unable  to  hop.  Examine  its  blood  under  the 
microscope  and  you  find  it  teeming  with  excessively 
minute  parasitic  rods  like  those  which  cause  the  phos- 
phorescence of  dead  fish,  of  stale  bones,  and  occasionally 
of  butcher's  meat.  Similar  bacilli  may  be  obtained  by 
cultivation  from  any  sea-water,  and  in  such  abundance 
that  a  room  can  be  lit  up  by  a  bottleful  of  the  cultiva- 
tion. Perhaps  all  the  light-producing  bacteria  or  bacilli 
are  only  varieties  of  one  species — perhaps  they  are  dis- 
tinct species.  Whether  a  species  or  a  variety,  that 
which  gets  into  the  blood  of  the  sand-hopper  and 


SAND-HOPPERS  157 

gives  it  the  luminosity  of  a  glow-worm,  inevitably  and 
rapidly  causes  its  death — a  severe  price  to  pay  for  brief 
nocturnal  effulgence.  Some  of  the  germs  can  be  re- 
moved on  a  needle's  point  from  the  dead  sand-hopper 
and  introduced  by  the  most  delicate  puncture  into  a 
healthy  sand-hopper  or  into  a  young  crab,  with  the 
result  that  they  too  become  illuminated,  the  bacillus 
multiplying  within  them.  Being  thus  morbidly  il- 
luminated and  having  astonished  the  crustacean,  not  to 
say  the  human  world,  by  their  alarming  brilliance,  they 
quickly  perish  :  a  little  history  which  may  be  read  as  a 
parable.  The  sand-hoppers  give  the  disease  to  one 
another.  It  is,  of  course,  a  merely  non-significant  thing 
that  the  bacillus  happens  to  set  up  light  vibrations. 
Its  chemical  activity  is  concerned  with  its  nourish- 
ment and  growth,  and  in  the  course  of  these  processes 
it  not  only  produces  light  but  poisonous  by-products 
which  kill  its  host.  Some  day  we  may  get  an 
"  immune "  race  of  sand-hoppers  who  will  acquire  the 
illuminating  bacillus  and  defy  its  poison.  Then  we 
shall  have  a  permanent  and  happy  breed  of  brilliant 
sand-hoppers  illuminating  the  dark  places  of  the 
seashore. 

It  is  conceivable  that  some  of  the  disease-producing 
bacilli  (bacteria,  cocci,  etc.)  which  multiply  in  man's 
blood  and  tissues  should  also  produce  light  vibrations, 
and  if  one  could  be  found  that  would  render  the  blood 
luminous,  whilst  not  producing  much  pain  or  malaise, 
no  doubt  some  excuse  would  be  found  for  its  use  as 
a  fashionable  toilet  novelty.  Cases  are  on  record  of 
luminosity  of  the  surface  of  the  body  and  its  secretions 
being  developed  during  serious  illness  by  human  beings, 
especially  in  acute  phthisis ;  but  these  ancient  records 
need  confirmation. 


158  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Luminous  bacilli  or  bacteria  only  give  out  light  when 
free  oxygen  is  in  the  water  or  liquid   inhabited  by  them. 
A  chemical  combination  of  the  oxygen  with  substances 
in  the  bacteria  is  the  necessary  condition  of  their  evolution 
of  light.     When  frozen,  these  bacteria  cease  to  be  lumi- 
nous— the  chemical  combination  cannot  take  place  when 
the  substance  of  the  bacterium  is  frozen  solid  and  main- 
tained   in    that    condition ;     the    liquid    condition    is    a 
necessary  condition  for  these  changes.      These  luminous 
bacteria  have  been  used  recently  by  Sir  James  Dewar  in 
the  Faraday  Laboratory  of  the  Royal  Institution  (where 
Sir  James  has  shown  them  to  me),  for  the  purpose  of 
investigating  the  action  of  intense  cold  on  living  matter. 
Although  their  luminous  response  to  oxygen  is  arrested 
when  they  are  frozen,  yet  immediately  on   allowing  the 
temperature  to  rise  above  freezing-point  the  response  of 
the    living    matter    to    oxidation    recommences,    and    a 
luminous  glow  is  seen.      Hence  we  have   in  this  glow  a 
ready  means  of  answering  the  question,  "  Does  extreme 
cold,  of  long  duration,  destroy  the  simplest  living  matter?" 
Sir  James  Dewar  has  exposed  a  film  of  these  bacteria  to 
the  extremest   degree  of   cold    as    yet   obtained  in  the 
laboratory,  that  at  which  hydrogen  gas  is  solidified,  and 
he  has  kept  them  in  this,  or  nearly  this,  degree  of  cold 
for  several  months.      Yet  immediately  on  "thawing"  the 
luminous  glow  was  visible  in  the  dark,  showing  that  the 
bacteria  were   still   alive.     Curiously   enough,  whilst  all 
chemical  action  in  living  matter  can  be  thus  arrested  by 
extreme  cold,  and  yet  resumed  on  rise  of  temperature 
and  restoration  to  the  liquid  condition,  so  that  the  old 
phrase  and  the  conception  of  "  suspended  animation  "  are 
justified — yet  there    is  one    widely-distributed    form    of 
activity,  the    effect  of   which    the    bacteria,   even   when 
hard    frozen,    cannot   resist,    namely,  that    of    the    blue 
and  ultra-blue  rays  of  light.     These  rays,  if  allowed  to 


SAND-HOPPERS  159 

fall  on  the  hardest  frozen  bacillus,  get  at  its  chemical 
structure,  shake  it  to  pieces,  destroy  it.  Hence  Sir  James 
Dewar  argues  that,  whilst  it  would  appear  that  the  ex- 
treme cold  of  space  would  not  kill  a  minute  living  germ, 
and  prevent  it  passing  from  planet  to  planet,  or  from 
remotest  space  to  our  earth,  yet  one  thing  which  is  more 
abundant  in  space  than  within  the  shell  of  our  atmosphere 
is  absolutely  destructive  to  such  minute  particles  of  living 
matter,  even  when  hard-frozen,  and  that  is  intense  light, 
the  ultra-visible  vibrations  of  smallest  wave-length. 


A  dance  on  the  seashore  :  a  sketch  by  Edward  Forbes  (1852). 


CHAPTER    XVIII 
A  SWISS  INTERLUDE 

AFTER  the  hot  summer  of  1911  I  escaped  from 
London  in  September  and  made  straight  for  Inter- 
laken.  Thence  1  was  "  wafted  "  by  the  electric  railway  to 
the  "  Schynige  Platte  " — a  wonderful  hill-side,  4500  feet 
above  the  "  Bodeli,"  the  flat  meadowland  in  which  Inter- 
laken  is  placed.  At  the  Schynige  Platte  we  are  separated 
to  the  south  from  the  Jungfrau  and  the  great  Oberland 
range  of  mountains  only  by  a  deep  rift  in  which  rushes 
the  "  Black  Liitschine,"  coming  down  from  Grindelwald 
to  join  its  "  white "  brother-torrent  close  beneath  us  at 
Zweiliitschinen.  To  reach  the  "  Platte  "  we  creep  in  our 
train  up  the  northern  side  of  the  mountain — one  of  whose 
peaks  is  known  by  the  curious  name  "  Gummihorn  " — 
for  more  than  an  hour  without  a  glimpse  of  what  is  on 
the  other  side.  Then,  when  we  are  6000  feet  above 
sea-level,  we  enter  a  short  tunnel  in  the  shoulder  of  the 
mountain,  and  all  is  dark.  When  the  train  emerges 
every  one  in  it  gasps.  You  hear  a  cry  from  every  mouth 
— for  the  scene  is  astounding !  Coming  through  that 
tunnel  we  have  stolen  surreptitiously  upon  a  band  of 
gigantic  snow-white  brethren — the  Wetterhorner,  the 
Schreckhorner,  the  Eiger,  the  Monch,  the  Jungfrau,  the 
Mittaghorn,  the  Breithorn,  and  the  Tschingelhorn.  There 
they  are — lying  close  to  us,  unaware  of  our  approach — 

naked  and  unashamed,  glistening  in  the  sunlight,  variously 

1 60 


A  SWISS  INTERLUDE  161 

stretched  in  their  immense  repose.  One  feels  on  seeing 
them  thus  free  from  every  scrap  of  cloud  and  clothing  as 
though  one  had  intruded  upon  a  glorious  company  of 
titanic  beings  innocently  sunning  themselves  in  perfect 
nudity.  It  is  with  the  sense  that  humble  apologies  for 
the  intrusion  are  due  to  them,  and  will  be  graciously 
accepted  because  we  hold  them  in  such  profound  admira- 
tion and  reverence,  that  we  venture,  little  by  little,  to  let 
our  eyes  dwell  on  their  wondrous  beauty.  There  are 
moments,  it  must  be  confessed,  when  we  feel  a  qualm  of 
modesty  and  are  unwilling  to  take  advantage  of  our  rare 
chance — moments  when  we  should  not  be  surprised  if 
one  of  the  giants  were  to  hurl  a  command  at  us — in 
terms  of  thunder  and  avalanche — ordering  us  at  once  to 
retire  to  the  other  side  of  the  Gummihorn  and  leave 
them  to  their  rightful  privacy.  There  is  no  great  view 
of  snow  mountains  at  close  range — not  even  that  from 
the  Gornergrat — which  is  at  once  so  fine  and  so  easily 
accessible. 

In  the  following  year  I  went  early  in  June  in  search 
of  another  Alpine  delight,  the  spring  flowers — not  those 
of  the  highest  "  downs  "  and  sheltering  rocks  8000  or 
9000  feet  above  sea-level,  but  those  of  the  higher 
meadows,  where  the  pine  forests  are  beginning  to  thin 
out,  and  rich  crops  are  cut  before  July  by  the  skilful 
workers  of  the  great  Swiss  industry,  that  of  cow-herding 
and  the  production  of  cheese.  It  is  difficult  to  define 
properly  the  term  "  Alpine  "  as  applied  to  flowers.  It  is 
now  used  by  horticulturists  very  generally  for  those 
exquisite  small  plants,  the  Saxifrages,  Androsacae, 
Gentians,  etc.,  which  grow  in  the  highest  regions  to 
which  plant-life  extends — regions  which  are  often  covered 
by  the  winter's  snow  until  June,  and  even  late  into  that 
month.  Some  of  these  plants  (as,  for  instance,  the 
ii 


1 62  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Soldanellas — those  little  lilac-coloured  flowers  like  pen- 
dent foolscaps  which  are  allied  to  our  primrose — and  the 
crocus  and  the  butterbur  (Petasites)  actually  blossom 
beneath  the  snow  and  push  their  open  flowers  through  it 
to  the  sunlight.  Others  of  these  "  higher  Alpines  "  have 
a  peculiar  mode  of  growth  related  to  their  special  con- 
ditions of  life.  Their  stems  are  very  short  and  their 
foliage  closely  set,  so  that  they  form  compact  tufts  or 
cushions,  on  which  their  short-stalked  brilliant  little 
flowers  are  dotted.  The  fact  is  they  have  not  time  in 
the  short  summer  of  these  high  regions  to  grow  long 
stems.  Their  flowers  are  produced  on  low-lying  parts 
of  the  plant,  which  carry  small  and  abundant  green 
leaves,  but  never  send  up  long  leaf-bearing  stems.  Not 
only  do  they  thus  do  quickly,  and  without  needless 
upward  growth,  what  they  have  to  do — namely,  expose 
green  leaves  to  the  sunlight  for  nutrition  and  their 
flowers  to  the  fertilizing  visits  of  insects  so  as  to  ripen 
their  reproductive  seeds — but  they  benefit  by  keeping 
close  to  the  warmth  of  the  ground,  which  is  heated  by 
the  strong  sunshine,  and  is  three  and  a  half  degrees 
higher  in  temperature  than  the  cold  moist  air.  In 
similar  positions  in  low-lying  regions  the  difference 
between  the  temperature  of  the  air  and  that  of  the 
surface  of  the  ground  is  not  as  much  as  one  degree. 

The  Alpine  meadows  do  not  occur  above  the  height 
of  5000  to  6000  feet,  and  are  bordered  by  pine  woods, 
in  which  are  many  beautiful  plants  not  to  be  found  at 
all  or  not  in  such  profusion  in  the  lower  valleys.  Both 
the  meadows  and  woods  of  the  Alpine  heights  graduate 
into  those  of  lower  level,  and  it  is  difficult  to  draw  the 
line  and  say  these  flowers  should  be,  and  these  should 
not  be,  called  "  Alpines."  Many  rock-loving  plants 
allied  to  those  found  at  great  heights  flourish  in  com- 


A  SWISS  INTERLUDE  163 

paratively  low-lying  regions,  where  the  necessary  rocky 
character  exists.  The  flowers  of  the  high  Alpine 
meadows  are  not  the  rock-lovers,  the  inhabitants  of  a 
surface  formed  by  fragments  of  broken  rock,  to  which 
the  name  "  Alpine "  is  often  limited.  The  meadow 
plants  grow  on  good  soil,  and  cover  whole  acres,  in 
which  there  is  but  little  grass.  The  fields  are  coloured 
of  almost  uniform  blue  or  white  or  purple  or  yellow  as 
the  weeks  go  on,  and  various  species  one  after  another 
have  their  turn  of  dominance  and  maturity. 

I  paid,  first  of  all,  a  brief  visit  to  Aix  and  the  lakes 
of  Bourget  and  of  Annecy,  to  the  gorge  of  the  River 
Fier,  and  to  the  finely-situated  monastery  of  the  Grande 
Chartreuse — a  huge  building,  devoid  of  beauty,  which 
it  seems  to  be  difficult  to  utilize  now  that  the  Carthusian 
Brothers  have  been  expelled.  The  richly-coloured  Alpine 
centaury,  deep  blue  and  purple  red,  was  growing  in 
the  woods  around  it  abundantly,  and  many  other 
handsome  plants.  Zoology  was  represented  by  most 
excellent  little  trout  provided  for  us  at  the  village  inn. 
Then  I  stayed  a  couple  of  days  at  Geneva,  where,  in 
a  pool  in  a  richly-planted  rock  garden — that  of  the 
well-known  horticulturist  M.  Correvon — I  came  across 
what  I  have  long  wished  to  see,  namely,  the  blue  variety 
of  the  edible  frog.  Six  years  ago  I  wrote  an  account  of 
the  little  blue  frog  of  Mentone,  the  rare  variety  of  the 
green  tree-frog,  or  rainette,  so  abundant  in  that  region 
(see  "Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  p.  50:  Methuen,  1910). 
The  edible  frog  (Rana  esculenta)  is  often  very  beautifully 
coloured  with  blotches  of  dark  brown  and  pale  green, 
and  a  pale  yellow  stripe  down  the  back.  It  is  easily 
distinguished  from  the  brown  frog  (Rana  temporaria), 
which  occurs  with  it  The  latter  is  the  common  frog 
of  our  islands,  though  we  also  find  the  edible  frog  in 


1 64  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  South  of  England.  The  blue  variety  of  the  edible 
frog  has  been  seen  in  various  localities  in  Germany  and 
along  the  valley  of  the  Rhone.  It  owes  its  colour,  as 
does  the  blue  tree-frog,  to  the  suppression  of  yellow 
pigment  in  its  skin.  The  one  I  found  was  swimming 
in  a  small  clear  pool  with  two  other  very  finely-marked 
specimens  of  the  more  usual  colouring.  A  blue  variety 
of  our  common  brown  frog  has  not  been  observed, 
although  it  is  occasionally  very  pale  in  colour  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  sometimes  of  a  bright  orange-brown 
tint.  Several  species  of  toads  and  frogs  are  found  on 
the  Continent  which  do  not  occur  in  Great  Britain. 

Years  ago  (when  France  and  Germany  began  the 
great  war  of  1869-70)  I  travelled  from  Geneva  to 
Chamonix  by  coach.  It  took  the  whole  day.  Now  I 
and  my  companion,  avoiding  the  railway,  were  driven 
in  a  motor-car  past  Bonneville,  Cluses,  and  Sallanches 
(with  its  famous  view  of  Mont  Blanc),  and  along  the  vale 
of  Chamonix  to  its  far  end  above  Argentiere  in  less  than 
three  hours.  Here  we  stayed  a  few  days  in  the  Hotel 
du  Planet,  at  a  height  of  4500  feet,  in  order  to  enjoy 
the  sight  of  the  meadows  and  woodland  flowers.  I 
may  add  that  in  this  quiet  hotel  the  proprietor  gave 
us  simple,  good  food,  well  cooked,  which  is  more  than 
I  can  say  of  the  large  hotels  on  the  lakes  and  popular 
resorts,  such  as  Geneva,  Montreux,  Glion,  and  Inter- 
laken,  where  I  have  carefully  inquired  into  the  kitchen 
arrangements  and  food  supplies.  The  latter  barrack-like 
edifices  have  of  late  years  become  intolerable  owing  to 
the  mechanical  supply  to  them  (by  a  group  of  monopolist 
financiers  who  have  acquired  the  contract)  of  the  nastiest 
ice-stored  fish,  meat,  and  vegetables.  These  are  heated 
in  their  kitchens  with  bottled  sauces  in  patent  ovens 
by  underpaid  scullery-helps,  without  the  superintendence 


A  SWISS  INTERLUDE  165 

of  a  qualified  "  cook."  The  result  is  a  sham — pretentious 
and  inedible — which  yields  a  fine  profit  to  the  hotel 
companies,  and  is  erroneously  believed  by  the  travelling 
crowds  of  to-day  to  be  French  cookery !  In  reality  it 
is  a  new  device  for  bringing  the  "  catering  "  in  all  hotels 
in  the  great  holiday  centres  under  a  monopolist  control. 
The  scheme  is  similar  to  that  to  which  the  continental 
railway  companies  have  yielded  in  leasing  to  a  well- 
known  company  the  restaurant  and  sleeping  arrange- 
ments on  their  trains,  with  the  result  of  causing  much 
misery  to  travellers  and  profit  to  themselves  and  to  the 
monopolists. 

Owing  to  differences  in  exposure  and  soil,  the 
meadowland  above  Argentiere  showed  a  fascinating 
variety  of  colour.  Here  was  an  acre  of  the  large- 
flowered  purple  geranium,  interspersed  with  the  big 
Alpine  yellow  rattle  (a  greedy  root-parasite) ;  there 
(near  some  pine  trees)  a  mass  of  the  yellow  anemone 
(Anemone  sulfurea) ;  farther  on  a  whole  meadow,  blue 
with  the  abundance  of  large  hairbells  and  viper's  bugloss. 
Close  by,  in  the  damper  parts  of  the  valley  descending 
from  the  Col  des  Montets,  three  or  four  acres  of  meadow- 
land  were  white,  so  thickly  were  they  covered  with  tall 
plants  of  the  distinguished-looking  white  buttercup 
(Ranunculus  aconitifolius).  In  some  parts,  among  these 
dignified  Ranunculi,  the  plump  yellow  heads  of  the 
globe-flower  (Trollius),  also  a  kind  of  buttercup,  were 
abundant.  Overshadowed  by  these  larger  plants,  or 
growing  up  between  them,  were  orchids,  plantains,  poly- 
gonums,  and  many  others.  The  most  beautiful  plant 
in  these  meadows  was  St.  Bruno's  lily,  which  we  found 
in  abundance  on  a  steep  bank.  It  is  named  after  the 
founder  of  the  Carthusian  order,  whose  monastery  (the 
Grande  Chartreuse),  first  established  when  William  the 


1 66  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Conqueror  ruled  England,  I  had  visited  a  week  before. 
St.  Bruno's  lily  has  large,  white,  funnel-shaped  flowers, 
an  inch  or  more  long,  three  or  four  on  a  stalk.  It  is 
known  to  botanists  by  the  pretty  name  "  Paradisia 
liliastrum."  It  is  the  lily  of  the  Alps,  pure  and  un 
spotted,  with  a  delicious  perfume,  and  six  golden  stamens 
guarded  by  its  beautiful  and  large  white  corolla.  In 
the  woods  we  found  some  of  the  larger  orchids,  and 
also  whole  banks  covered  with  the  waxy-looking  flowers, 
variegated  in  colour,  white,  yellow,  and  red,  of  the 
large  millwort,  the  Polygala  chamsebuxus — a  plant  very 
unlike  in  appearance  to  the  little  blue  and  white  milk- 
worts  of  England.  It  flowers  in  winter  as  well  as 
through  the  early  summer.  Another  wonderfully  waxy- 
looking  flower  which  we  found  is  that  of  the  shrub 
known  as  the  Alpine  Daphne.  There  is  something 
suggestive  of  exotic  rarity  and  perfume  about  a  waxy- 
looking  flower.  Of  the  same  character  are  the  flowers 
of  the  little  shrubs  of  the  genus  Vaccinium  known  as 
the  bilberry,  the  wortleberry,  the  cow-berry,  and  the 
bear- berry,  which  occur  on  the  open  scrubland.  The 
rusty-leaved  Rhododendron,  with  its  crimson  flowers, 
and  the  little  Azalea  (like  the  Vaccinia — all  members 
of  the  Heath  family)  were  abundant — as  well  as  the 
true  dark-red  rose  of  the  Alps,  the  richly-scented  Rosa 
alpina. 

We  left  Argentiere  and  the  constant  companionship 
of  the  great  glaciers  of  the  vale  of  Chamonix,  and 
descended  by  train  through  the  awe-inspiring  valley  of 
the  Trient  (up  which  we  used  to  walk  many  years  ago, 
on  our  way  to  the  higher  regions)  to  Martigny,  and 
then  drove  for  four  hours  up  a  rough  mountain  road  to 
the  hotel  of  Pierre-a-voir — whence  we  descended  a  few 
days  later  in  sledges,  over  grass  slopes  and  torrent  beds, 


A  SWISS  INTERLUDE  167 

4000  feet  in  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  to  Saxon  in  the 
Rhone  valley,  a  truly  alarming  experience.  The  "  luge  " 
or  sledge  is  supported  in  front  by  a  strong  mountaineer 
who  prevents  it  from  "  hurtling  "  down  at  breakneck  speed, 
topsy-turvy.  As  the  avoidance  of  such  a  catastrophe 
depends  on  the  strength  and  the  sureness  of  foot  of 
this  individual,  travelling  by  "  luges "  is  not  to  be 
recommended  in  summer,  however  agreeable  it  may  be 
when  the  mountain  side  is  covered  with  snow.  In 
the  woods  near  Pierre-a-voir  we  found  another  member 
of  the  Heath  family,  looking  like  a  lily  rather  than  a 
heath,  the  sweet-scented  winter-green  with  its  large 
single  white  flower  (Pirola  uniflora),  and  on  the  rocks 
on  open  ground  masses  of  the  pink  flowers  of  the  little 
rock  soap-wort  (Saponaria  ocymoides).  The  curious 
tall,  big-leaved  composite  with  only  three  purple  florets 
to  a  head,  the  Adenostyles  albifrons,  was  here  much 
in  evidence.  We  were  too  early  for  the  flowers  of  the 
pretty  little  creeping  plant  allied  to  the  honeysuckle 
which  the  great  Linnaeus  asked  his  friend  Gronovius  to 
name  after  him,  the  Linnaea  borealis,  though  we  had 
been  told  that  it  grows  in  this  neighbourhood. 

Then  we  spent  five  days  at  Glion  and  on  the  in- 
comparable Lake  of  Geneva,  never  wearied  of  gazing  at 
the  changing  mysterious  lights  and  colours  (sapphire, 
emerald,  and  silver)  of  its  vast  and  restful  expanse. 

The  question  often  is  asked,  "  Why  is  it  that  the 
same  species  of  flower  is  brighter  and  stronger  in  colour 
when  growing  high  up  in  the  Alps  than  when  growing 
in  the  lowlands  and  in  our  own  country  ?  "  The  fact  is 
admitted ;  the  blues  of  the  blue-bells  (Campanula),  the 
bugloss,  the  forget-me-nots,  the  crimsons  and  purples  of 
the  geraniums  and  the  pinks  and  the  campions,  and  many 


1 68  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

others,  are  examples.  Careful  study  and  consideration 
of  the  facts  have  enabled  botanists  to  show,  in  many 
instances,  within  recent  years,  that  the  peculiarities  of 
form  and  also  of  colour  of  the  stems,  leaves,  and  flowers 
of  plants  are  not  mere  unmeaning  "  accidents,"  but  are 
definitely  of  advantage  and  of  "  survival  value "  to  the 
species.  Thus  we  have  seen  that  the  tuft-like  cushions 
formed  by  high  Alpine  plants  are  explained.  The 
purple  and  reddish  colour  of  stalks  and  leaves  like  that  of 
the  red  variety  of  the  common  beech  has  not  always,  as 
in  that  plant,  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  chlorophyll 
from  destruction  by  too  vivid  sunlight.  In  Alpine  plants 
it  is  often  present  on  the  underside  of  leaves  and  of  the 
petals,  and  acts  to  the  plant's  benefit,  absorbing  light  and 
converting  it  into  heat.  But  it  also  seems  in  many  cases 
to  protect  the  juices  of  the  plant  from  the  destructive 
action  of  white  light. 

It  is  held  by  some  botanists  that  the  bright  colour 
of  Alpine  (and  Norwegian)  samples  of  a  flower  elsewhere 
of  a  paler  colour  is  due  to  the  direct  action  of  the  greater 
sunlight  of  the  high  regions  in  causing  the  formation  of 
pigment.  This  is  inadmissible.  The  sunlight  cannot 
act  in  that  way.  It  causes  increased  formation  of 
nutriment  by  acting  on  the  chlorophyll,  and  an  Alpine 
plant  thus  highly  charged  with  nutritive  matters  can 
afford  to  form  more  abundant  pigment  than  a  plant 
which  enjoys  less  brilliant  sunshine.  The  high-coloured 
Alpine  flowers  are  a  breed  or  race ;  a  pale-coloured 
plant  taken  to  the  Alps  from  below  does  not  itself  be- 
come high  coloured.  It  is  a  matter  of  natural  selection. 
The  occasional  high-coloured  "  spontaneous "  variations 
produced  from  seed  have  an  advantage  in  the  short 
summer  of  the  high  Alps.  They  attract  the  visits  of 
the  few  insects  in  the  short  season  more  surely  than  do 


A  SWISS  INTERLUDE  169 

the  paler  individuals,  and  consequently  they  are  fertilized 
and  reproduce,  whilst  the  race  of  the  paler  individuals 
dies  out  from  failure  to  attract  the  insects.  Thus  we 
get  a  high-coloured  race  established  in  the  mountains, 
a  race  that  can  make  haste  and  seize  the  brief  oppor- 
tunities of  the  short  but  brilliant  summer.  There  are 
many  peculiarities  of  form  and  colour  of  plants  the  life 
conditions  of  which  are  diverse  (e.g.,  woodland,  moorland, 
aquatic,  seashore,  dry  air,  moist  air,  etc.),  which  can  be 
shown  by  accurate  observation  to  be  specially  related 
to  those  life  conditions.  Those  conditions  allow  the 
peculiarities  to  survive  and  establish  a  race,  in  some 
cases  a  species,  whilst  preventing  the  maturity  or 
destroying  the  life  of  those  individuals  not  presenting 
that  advantageous  peculiarity  of  variation. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
SCIENCE  AND  DANCING 

THERE  is  at  the  present  day  in  this  country  a  real 
and  most  happy  revival  of  interest  in  the  great 
art  of  dancing  as  exhibited  on  the  stage.  We  owe  this 
to  the  creative  ability  of  the  musical  composers  and 
directors  of  the  Russian  Imperial  Ballet,  as  well  as  to 
the  highly-trained  and  gifted  Russian  artists  who  have 
visited  this  country,  and  especially  to  the  poetical  genius 
of  Madame  Anna  Pavlova.  Though  dancing  may  seem, 
on  first  thought,  a  subject  remote  from  science,  yet,  like 
all  other  human  developments,  it  is  a  matter  for  scientific 
investigation,  and  one  upon  which  science  can  throw 
much  light.  What  is  the  origin  and  essential  nature  of 
"  dancing "  ?  Do  animals  dance  ?  What  is  its  early 
history  in  mankind  ?  What  is  its  relation  not  merely 
historically,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  psychology — 
the  study  of  the  mind — to  other  arts  ?  What  is  its  real 
"  value  "  and  possible  achievement  ? 

To  dance  is  to  trip  with  measured  steps,  and,  whilst 
primarily  referring  to  human  movement,  the  word  is 
secondarily  applied  to  rapid  rhythmic  movements  even 
of  inanimate  objects;  Rhythm  is  what  distinguishes 
dancing  from  ordinary  movement  of  progression  or  from 

simple  gesture  or  mere  antics.      Dancing  on  the  part  of 

170 


SCIENCE  AND  DANCING  171 

man  or  animal  implies  a  sense  of  rhythm.  Though  not 
common  amongst  animals,  it  is  exhibited  by  many  birds, 
by  spiders,  and  by  some  crustaceans  !  Rhythm  is  an 
essential  feature  of  the  sequence  of  sounds  which  we  call 
"  music."  The  singing  of  birds  is  related  to  their  per- 
ception of  and  pleasure  in  rhythm,  and  it  is  not,  there- 
fore, surprising  that  they  should  also  dance.  It  is, 
however,  curious  that  the  birds  which  "  dance  "  are  not 
the  "  singing  birds,"  and  that  there  are  many  birds  which 
neither  sing  nor  dance.  The  dancing  of  birds  is  usually 
part  of  the  "  display "  of  the  males  for  the  purpose  of 
attracting  the  females  at  the  breeding  season.  It  is  well 
known  in  some  African  cranes,  as  well  as  in  rails  and 
other  similar  birds,  and  may  be  witnessed  at  the 
Zoological  'Gardens  in  London.  Other  birds  "  strut " 
rather  than  dance,  whilst  displaying  their  plumage,  as, 
for  instance,  the  turkey  and  pheasant  tribe  and  the 
bustards.  Parrots  and  cockatoos  will  often  make  a 
rhythmical  up-and-down  movement  of  the  neck  in  time 
to  music,  but  usually  the  "  dance  "  is  the  accompaniment 
of  definite  emotion.  The  male  spider  of  some  species 
courts  the  female  by  making  dancing  movements  and 
posing  itself  in  a  very  curious  way,  so  as  to  display  a 
spot  of  bright  colour  on  the  head  to  her  observation. 
The  same  kind  of  movement  and  action  has  been 
observed  in  marine  shrimp-like  creatures.  Some  spiders 
are  excited  and  made  to  dance  by  the  vibrating  note  of 
a  tuning-fork  set  going  near  them.  I  once  had  the 
chance  to  observe  a  male  octopus  in  the  aquarium  at 
Naples,  who  was  displaying  himself  to  the  female, 
changing  colour  rapidly  from  one  shade  to  another,  and 
rolling  his  long  sucker-bearing  arms  in  the  form  of 
spirals.  Probably  one  should  not  consider  this  as  a 
"  dance,"  since  no  rhythmic  interruption  or  succession  of 
movements  was  observable. 


172  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

It  is  established  that  in  mankind,  as  well  as  many 
animals,  when  in  a  state  of  emotion,  movement  and 
gesture,  as  well  as  the  vocal  utterance,  take  on  a 
rhythmic  character,  that  is  to  say,  become  a  dance  and 
a  song.  The  emotion  is  not  necessarily  that  of  amorous 
passion ;  in  mankind  it  is  frequently  of  a  warlike  or 
religious  character,  and  is  worked  up  by  the  sympathy, 
imitativeness,  and  desire  for  unison  in  expression  which 
is  common  in  troops  or  large  gatherings  of  animals  of 
social  habits.  Man  presents  a  more  advanced  develop- 
ment in  variety,  sensitiveness,  and  abandonment  to  social 
or  combined  action  and  expression  than  do  other  animals, 
and  this  is  equally  true  of  the  more  civilized  and  of  the 
more  barbarous  races.  Apparently  in  obedience  to  the 
same  tendencies  as  those  which  convert  simple  forms  of 
movement  into  a  rhythmic  dance,  the  speech  of  man, 
under  conditions  of  emotion,  assumes  a  rhythmic  form,  so 
that  dancing  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  ordinary 
movements  of  locomotion  and  gesture  which  verse  does 
to  ordinary  speech,  or,  again,  which  song  bears  to  mere 
exclamations  and  cries,  indicative  of  feeling.  Dancing  is 
the  universal  and  most  primitive  expression  of  that  sense 
of  rhythm  which  is  a  widely  distributed  attribute  of  the 
nervous  system  in  animals  generally.  In  primitive  men 
it  is  a  simple  but  often  very  violent  demonstration  of 
strong  emotion,  such  as  social  joy,  religious  exaltation, 
martial  ardour,  or  amatory  passion.  The  voice  and  the 
facial  muscles,  as  well  as  those  of  the  limbs  and  body, 
are  affected,  and  the  dancers  derive  an  intense  pleasure 
from  the  excitement,  which  so  far  from  exhausting  them 
leads  them  on  to  more  and  more  violent  rhythmic  or 
undulatory  action.  In  its  purest  form  this  ecstatic 
condition  is  seen  in  the  spinning  dervishes.  It  was 
developed  into  the  mad  and  dangerous  festivals  of  the 
worshippers  of  Bacchus  and  other  deities  in  ancient 


SCIENCE  AND  DANCING  173 

Greece.  It  has  been  seen  in  mediaeval  Europe  as  the 
dancing  mania  and  tarantism.  The  liability  to  this  and 
similar  forms  of  "  mania "  lurks  beneath  the  surface 
among  populations  which  are  nevertheless  staid  and 
phlegmatic  in  their  usual  behaviour.  The  Romans  in 
ancient  times  recognized  its  unhealthy  character,  and 
though  fond  of  ceremonial  dances  and  theatrical  shows, 
and  even  of  the  performances  of  dancing  girls  from 
Greece  and  the  East,  disapproved  of  dancing  on  the 
part  of  a  Roman  citizen.  Cicero  says,  "  As  a  rule  no 
one,  who  is  not  drunk,  dances — unless  he  is,  temporarily, 
out  of  his  mind." 

Although  the  mad  performances  of  bacchanalians 
and  dervishes  are  recognized  as  unhealthy,  civilized 
peoples  in  Europe  since  the  fifteenth  century  have 
developed  and  practised  dancing  as  an  art  in  two 
directions — first,  as  a  popular  amusement  in  which 
definite  combinations  of  graceful  movements  are  per- 
formed for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  which  the  exercise 
affords  to  the  dancer  and  to  the  spectator,  and  secondly, 
as  carefully  trained  movements  which  are  meant  by  the 
dancer  vividly  to  represent  the  actions  and  passions  of 
other  people,  and  are  exhibited  by  specially  skilled 
performers  on  a  stage.  The  first  kind  is  what  we  call 
"  country  dances,"  "  popular  dances,"  also  "  Court  and 
ball-room  dances,"  and  has  been  commended  by  the 
philosopher  Locke  and  other  writers  as  a  valuable  training 
for  both  mind  and  body,  and  by  physicians  as  a  health- 
giving  exercise.  The  second  is  "  the  ballet." 

In  the  dances  of  savages  and  primitive  peoples,  some 
kind  of  music  is  always  found  associated  with  dancing, 
the  one  helping  and  developing  the  other ;  they  are 
descendants  of  one  parentage.  Very  commonly,  too, 


174  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

some  kind  of  "  acting  "- — the  representation  of  a  hunt,  a 
fight,  or  a  love  adventure — is  an  important  feature  of 
such  dancing.  Modern  popular  and  Court  dances  are 
intimately  connected  with  and  dependent  on  special 
music,  the  rhythm  and  variation  of  time  and  strength  in 
which  is,  as  it  were,  illustrated  by  the  dancing,  and  serves 
to  guide  it  and  to  keep  the  dancers  in  unison.  The 
signification  behind  all  such  modern  dancing  is  courtship 
— the  addresses  of  the  man  to  the  woman,  and  her 
elusive  reception  or  rejection  of  them.  In  the  Cathedral 
of  Seville,  however,  you  may  still  see,  at  the  festival  of 
the  Corpus  Christi,  a  religious  dance,  a  dance  of  worship 
and  adoration,  performed  by  acolytes  in  front  of  the 
high  altar.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Church  such 
ritual  dancing,  by  both  old  and  young,  was  a  regular 
thing,  as  it  was  in  the  still  earlier  religious  ceremonies 
of  the  ancient  Romans  and  in  the  time  of  King 
David. 

The  development  of  dancing  as  a  fine  art  has  only 
been  rendered  possible  by  the  establishment,  under  the 
patronage  of  various  European  princes,  of  great  exhibi- 
tions of  dancing,  called  "  ballets,"  and  the  creation  of  a 
profession  of  dancers,  who,  like  professional  actors  and 
musicians,  devote  their  lives  to  the  study  of  their  art 
and  the  training  necessary  for  efficiency  in  its  practice. 
In  this,  its  highest  development,  dancing,  whilst  main- 
taining its  dominance,  is  entirely  dependent  on  the  aid 
of  music,  and  becomes  blended  with  the  art  of  the  actor 
and  pantomimist.  As  in  "  opera "  the  effect  of  the 
musical  art  is  enhanced  by  the  meaning  of  the  words 
sung,  by  the  acting  of  the  performers,  and  by  the 
accessories  of  scenery  and  costume,  so  in  the  ballet  do 
all  these  factors,  except  the  human  voice,  contribute  to 
the  artistic  result.  The  latest  development  of  the  ballet 


SCIENCE  AND  DANCING  175 

is,  in  fact,  "  grand  opera,"  without  a  voice,  without  words. 
Gesture,  facial  expression,  and  movement  of  the  limbs, 
marvellous  for  its  grace  and  directness  of  appeal,  take 
the  place  of  words.  In  fact,  dance,  the  appeal  to  the 
eye,  takes  the  place  of  verse,  the  appeal  to  the  ear.  And 
it  is  a  fact,  unexpected  and  astonishing  to  those  new  to 
it,  that  the  same  quality  of  "  poetic  imagination  "  which 
distinguishes  "word-poems"  from  mere  doggerel  or 
commonplace  verse,  can  also  inspire  the  great  dancer  and 
give  to  a  wordless  dance  the  unmistakable  value  of 
poetical  art,  distinguishing  it  from  purely  acrobatic  or 
barbaric  capering.  It  is  a  fact  that  poetic  imagination 
may  be  conveyed  in  one  kind  of  art  as  in  another,  and 
that  dancing,  though  greatly  limited  in  its  range  of 
detailed  expression,  yet  is  closely  similar  in  its  forms  to 
music,  verse,  and  to  glyptic  and  pictorial  art,  of  all  of 
which  it  is  the  parent  and  forerunner.  Its  primitive 
character  is  no  less  remarkable  than  the  readiness  with 
which  it  exerts  its  charm  and  develops  new  importance 
at  the  present  day. 

Regarded  as  a  fine  art,  and  not  merely  as  a  pastime, 
dancing  has  frequently  great  beauty  in  its  simple  quality 
of  the  rhythmic  movement  of  decorative  form  and' colour. 
The  dances  depicted  on  Greek  vases  had  this  character, 
and  so,  with  varying  degree  of  merit,  have  the  ballets 
common  during  the  last  fifty  years  in  London  and  other 
great  centres.  But  before  this  period  the  makers  of 
ballets  (a  word  originally  signifying  to  dance,  to  sing,  to 
rejoice,  and  representing  three  modern  words — ballet, 
ball,  and  ballad)  did  not  aim  at  a  mere  exhibition  of 
living  rhythmic  decoration,  but  at  the  production  of  a 
theatrical  performance  in  which  a  story  is  told  only  by 
gesture  and  dancing  accompanied  by  music.  The  real 
modern  founder  and  exponent  of  the  ballet  as  thus 


1 76  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

understood  was  Noverre,  a  Frenchman  (called  by 
Garrick  "  the  Shakespeare  of  the  dance "),  who  died  in 
I  8 1 0.  He  brought  to  a  high  degree  of  perfection  the 
art  of  presenting  a  story  by  pantomime,  and  he  never 
allowed  dancing  which  was  not  the  direct  expression  of 
a  particular  attitude  of  mind.  His  professed  effort  was 
to  introduce  the  steps  and  poses  of  ancient  Greek 
dancing  shown  in  sculpture  and  painted  pottery — as  the 
model  for  stage  dancing.  And  he  succeeded.  The 
great  dancers  of  the  past  who  are  known  to  us  by 
tradition — Vestris,  Camargo  in  the  eighteenth,  and  Cerito, 
Grisi,  and  Taglioni  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century — were  not  merely  perfectly  trained  as  dancers, 
but  were  actors,  and  possessed  poetic  imagination. 
Women  did  not  appear  in  the  ballet  until  the  time  of 
Louis  XIV,  and  Mile  Camargo  was  the  first  to  wear  the 
conventional  short  stiff  ballet  skirt. 

"  Convention "  has  a  great  weight  in  such  matters. 
But  it  seems  to  be  undeniable  that  the  conventional 
ballet-skirt  conceals  the  beautiful  movement  of  the  leg 
on  the  hip  joint,  a  disadvantage  from  which  the  male 
dancer  does  not  suffer.  Skirts  are,  in  fact,  out  of  place  in 
really  fine  dancing.  Flowing  light  drapery,  or  better  still 
the  Circassian  jacket  and  full  gauzy  trousers  fastened  at 
the  ankles,  are  the  only  possible  dress  for  a  really  great 
danseuse. 

The  dramatic  ballet  or  ballet  d'action  lasted  until 
the  end  of  the  fifties  in  London,  and  then  ceased  almost 
suddenly  to  occupy  the  leading  position  which  it  once 
held  at  the  Opera  House.  In  London,  as  in  Paris  and 
Vienna,  it  was  transformed  into  a  mere  spectacular 
display  of  costume  and  meaningless  rhythmic  drill.  The 
dramatic  ballet  ceased  to  exist.  The  great  tradition  of 
fine  stage-dancing  and  ballet-drama  was,  however, 


SCIENCE  AND  DANCING  177 

preserved  in  Russia.  It  is  not  easy  to  explain,  but  the 
fact  is  that  two  peoples  so  far  apart  as  the  Russians  and 
the  Spaniards  are  more  devoted  to  dancing  than  any 
other  European  nationalities.  Successive  Tsars  have 
spent  large  sums  in  maintaining  colleges  in  St. 
Petersburg  and  in  Moscow,  where  boys  and  girls  are 
lodged  and  carefully  educated  whilst  they  are  trained 
from  the  age  of  ten  years  in  the  art  of  stage-dancing. 
The  greatest  musical  composers  have  been  encouraged 
to  write  "  ballets,"  and  the  ablest  designers  and  "  pro- 
ducers "  have  been  secured  by  large  salaries.  Something 
like  £80,000  a  year  is  spent  by  the  Tsar  on  the 
maintenance  and  development  of  this  beautiful  art,  which 
is  dead  elsewhere,  but  seems  to  fit  the  genius  of  the 
Russian  people.  A  new  respect  for  Russia,  a  profound 
admiration  for  the  Russian  artists,  has  been  the  result  of 
the  revelation  of  the  Russian  ballet  by  the  recent  visits 
of  its  members  to  this  country. 

During  the  last  thirty  years  of  its  period  of  nurture 
and  development  in  Russia  the  ballet  has  developed  in 
two  directions.  Neither  of  these  are  popular  and  success- 
ful in  Russia,  where  the  old  traditional  and  established 
ballet  of  the  early  nineteenth  century — what  may  be 
called  "  academic  "  dancing — is  alone  in  demand.  What 
we  call  "  the  Russian  ballet "  is  dramatic  in  nature,  and 
includes  such  wonderful  combinations  of  music,  scenery, 
costume,  and  perfect  artistic  expression  by  dancing  and 
gesture  as  we  have  seen  in  Scheherazade,  Cleopatra, 
Prince  Igorre,  Tamar,  and  Petrouschka.  It  promises 
in  its  latest  development  to  supplant  the  musical  drama 
known  as  "  opera,"  in  which  the  human  voice  is  used. 
But  the  most  striking  development  is  that  in  which 
dancing  appears  as  the  exponent  of  lyrical  poetry.  It  is 
to  the  teaching  of  Isadora  Duncan  that  the  Russian 

12 


i;8  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

dancers  admit  their  indebtedness  for  this  new  departure. 
When  undertaken  by  untrained  dancers  and  amateurs 
(even  by  the  innovator  herself)  the  attempt  to  interpret 
lyrical  subjects  showed  some  ingenuity  in  conception, 
but  failed  to  command  general  appreciation,  as  the 
efforts  of  a  painter  or  an  actor,  who  has  not  acquired 
command  of  the  material  of  his  art,  also  fail.  But  when 
Anna  Pavlova  brought  her  lifelong  training  as  a  dancer  and 
her  poetic  imagination  to  the  interpretation  of  master- 
pieces of  music  inspired  by  such  subjects  as  "  Night/' 
"The  Dying  Rose,"  "The  Wounded  Swan,"  and  the 
moonlight  mystery  of  "  Les  Sylphides,"  a  new  and  most 
poignant  form  of  emotional  expression  became  apparent. 
A  single  figure  moving  over  the  stage  with  expressive 
steps  and  gestures  of  the  arms,  with  lips  and  eyes  guided 
and  controlled  by  consummate  art,  blended  itself  with  and 
interpreted  to  the  spectator  the  poetic  thought  of  a  great 
musical  composer  and  a  great  writer.  This  new  develop- 
ment of  the  dancer's  art  may  remain  with  us.  But  it 
requires  the  presence  of  one  who  combines  the  rare  gifts 
possessed  by  Madame  Pavlova — perfect  technique  and 
poetic  sympathy. 

Many  people  derive  a  definite  part  of  the  pleasure 
given  to  them  by  an  orchestral  concert  from  the  con- 
templation of  the  movements  of  the  instrumentalists  and 
the  directive  interpreting  gestures  of  a  great  "  conductor." 
Others  would  prefer  the  orchestra  and  its  leader  to  be 
unseen ;  they  find  special  delight  in  hearing  great  music 
surge  and  float  from  no  visible  source  through  the  dimly- 
lit  aisles  of  a  vast  cathedral.  They  do  not  desire  their 
eyes  to  be  called  in  aid  of  music  unless  the  appeal  to 
vision  is  complete  and  worthy  of  the  theme.  It  is,  I 
think,  undeniable  that  Dr.  Richter  and  my  friend  Sir 
Henry  Wood,  whose  expressive  backs  and  persuasive 


SCIENCE  AND  DANCING  179 

hands  are  so  dear  to  concert  audiences,  are  a  kind  of 
dwindled  ballet  dancers,  connected  by  the  drum-major  of 
the  military  band  and  the  dancing  "  choragus  "  with  the 
primeval  phase  of  the  arts  when  music  and  dancing 
were  inseparable. 


CHAPTER    XX 
COURTSHIP 

IT  is  always  amusing  to  find  the  lower  animals 
behaving  in  various  circumstances  of  life  very 
much  as  we  do  ourselves.  There  is  a  tendency  to  look 
upon  such  conduct  on  the  animals'  part  as  a  more  or 
less  clever  mimicry  of  humanity — a  sort  of  burlesque  of 
our  own  behaviour.  Really,  however,  it  has  a  far  greater 
interest ;  it  is  a  revelation  to  us  of  the  nature  and  origin  in 
our  animal  ancestry  of  various  deeply-rooted  "  behaviours  " 
which  are  common  to  us  and  animals.  The  wooing  of  a 
maid  by  a  man  and  the  various  strange  antics  and  poses 
to  which  love-sick  men  and  women  are  addicted,  are 
represented  by  similar  behaviour  among  animals,  and 
that,  too,  not  only  among  higher  animals  allied  to  man, 
but  even  among  minute  and  obscure  insects  and  molluscs. 
In  fact,  the  elementary  principle  of  "  courtship "  or 
"  wooing,"  namely,  the  pursuit  of  the  female  by  the 
male,  is  observed  among  the  lowest  unicellular  organisms 
— the  Protozoa  and  the  Protophyta  —  and  it  holds 
among  plants  as  well  as  among  animals,  for  it  is  the 
pollen — the  male  fertilizing  material — which  travels, 
carried  by  wind  or  by  the  nectar-bribed  "  parcels-delivery 
company  "  of  bees,  to  the  ovules  of  a  distant  flower,  and 
not  the  ovules  (the  female  products)  which  desert  their 
homes  in  quest  of  pollen. 


1 80 


COURTSHIP  181 

The  "  reproduction,"  or  producing  of  new  individuals, 
of  many  animals  and  plants  can  be,  and  is,  effected  by 
the  detachment  of  large  pieces  of  a  parent  organism. 
Thus  plants  split  into  two  or  more  pieces,  each  of  which 
carries  on  life  as  a  new  individual.  Many  worms  and 
polyps  multiply  by  breaking  into  two  or  more  pieces, 
and  very  often  the  broken-off  pieces  which  thus  become 
new  individuals  and  carry  on  the  race  are  extremely 
small,  even  microscopic  in  size.  The  spores  of  ferns  and 
the  minute  separable  buds  of  many  plants  and  animals 
are  of  this  nature.  They  grow  into  new  individuals 
without  any  fusion  with  fertilizing  particles  from  another 
individual.  Yet  there  seems  to  be  even  in  the  very 
simplest  living  things  a  need  to  be  met,  an  advantage  to 
be  gained,  in  the  fusion  of  the  substance  of  two  distinct 
parents  in  order  to  carry  on  the  race  with  the  best  chance 
of  success.  We  find  that  those  organisms  which  can 
multiply  by  buds  and  fission  yet  also  multiply  regularly 
by  ovules  fertilized  by  sperms.  We  see  this  process  in 
its  simplest  condition  in  microscopic  plants  and  animals 
which  are  so  minute  that  they  consist  of  only  a  single 
"  cell  " — a  single  nucleated  particle  of  protoplasm.  Such 
unicellular  organisms  have  definite  shape,  even  limb-like 
locomotor  organs,  shells,  contractile  heart-like  cavities 
within  the  protoplasm,  even  mouths,  digestive  tract,  and 
a  vent.  They  produce  new  individuals  by  merely 
dividing  into  two  equal  halves  or  by  more  rapidly 
dividing  into  several  individuals  each  like  the  parent, 
only  smaller.  But  from  time  to  time,  at  recurring 
periods  or  seasons,  two  of  these  unicellular  individuals 
(of  course,  two  of  the  same  kind  or  species)  come  into 
contact  with  one  another,  not  by  mere  chance,  but 
attracted  and  impelled  (probably  by  chemical  guiding  or 
alluring  substances  of  the  nature  of  perfumes)  towards 
one  another,  and  then  fuse  into  one.  Two  (or  sometimes 


1 82  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

several)  individuals  thus  melt  together  and  become  one 
individual — a  process  the  exact  reverse  of  the  division  of 
one  into  two.  This  is  known  to  microscopists  as  "  con- 
jugation." The  new  individual  resulting  from  conjugation 
after  a  time  divides,  and  the  individuals  thus  produced, 
each  consisting  of  a  mixture  of  the  fused  and  thoroughly 
mixed  substance  of  the  two  conjugated  individuals,  feed 
and  grow  and  divide  in  their  turn,  and  so  on  for  several 
generations,  until  again  the  epidemic  of  conjugation  sets 
in,  and  the  scattered  offspring  of  many  distinct  pairs  of 
the  previous  conjugation-season  in  their  turn  conjugate. 

It  is  clear  that  the  tendency  of  this  process  is  to 
prevent  the  continued  multiplication  of  one  stock  or  line 
of  descent  in  a  pure  state.  By  conjugation  different  lines 
of  descent — the  progeny  of  different  individuals,  often 
brought  together  from  widely  separate  localities — are 
blended  and  fused.  And  this  is,  we  are  led  to  conclude, 
a  matter  of  immense  importance.  To  effect  this  mixture 
of  separate  stocks  is,  as  Darwin  has  shown,  a  prime 
purpose  of  the  habits  and  structures  implanted  in  the 
very  substance  of  living  things,  and  developed  and 
accentuated  in  endless  ways  and  with  extraordinary 
elaboration  of  mechanisms  and  procedure  during  the 
immense  lapse  of  ages  during  which  life  has  unfolded 
and  developed  on  this  earth.  The  fusion  of  different 
strains  by  conjugation  gives  increased  variation  in  the 
offspring  or  new  generations  :  for  the  two  parental  strains 
differ  more  or  less,  as  all  living  individuals  do,  from  one 
another.  The  result  of  their  fusion  is  different  from 
either  parent.  In  fact,  the  process  of  fusion  itself  causes 
a  disturbance — a  readjustment  of  the  living  matter — so 
that  completely  new  variations  result  and  are  selected  or 
rejected  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Either  parental 
strain  was  perhaps  not  so  suitable  to  a  newly  developed 


COURTSHIP  183 

change  in  the  surrounding  conditions  of  life  as  the  new 
blend  may  be.  Thus  a  more  certain  and  active  pro- 
duction of  possibly  useful  variations  is  provided  for 
than  would  be  the  case  were  the  variations  of  one  self- 
multiplying  stock  alone  presented  for  selection. 

In  the  case  of  simple  conjugation  the  cell  individuals 
which  fuse  or  "  mate "  with  one  another,  and  may  be 
called  "  maters "  or  "  mating  cells,"  are  in  all  respects 
similar  to  one  another.  But  we  find  among  the  uni- 
cellular plants  and  animals  cases  in  which  one  of  the 
mating  cells,  instead  of  fusing  with  another  straight  away, 
divides  into  a  number  of  much  smaller  cells,  which  are 
very  active  in  locomotion  and  are  specially  produced  in 
order  to  mate  or  fuse  with  the  larger  cells.  The  mating 
cells  are  called  "  gametes/'  and  the  large  motionless 
mating  cells  are  called  "  macro  -  gametes,"  or  "  large 
maters,"  whilst  the  small  motile  mating  cells  are  called 
"  micro-gametes,"  or  small  "  maters."  The  former  are  of 
the  same  nature  as  egg  cells  or  ovules,  the  female  re- 
productive particles,  whilst  the  latter,  the  small  "  maters," 
are  identical  in  nature  with  the  sperms  or  spermatozoa 
or  male  reproductive  particles  of  higher  organisms.  In 
the  case  of  certain  parasitic  unicellular  animals  called 
coccidia,  and  also  in  the  parasite  which  causes  malarial 
fever,  quantities  of  small  "  mating  cells "  are  produced 
which  fuse  with  or  "  fertilize  "  other  much  larger  mating 
cells.  The  small  "  maters "  of  coccidia  have  long 
vibrating  tails  and  minute  oblong  bodies,  and  agree 
closely  in  appearance  and  active  locomotion  with  the 
spermatozoa  of  higher  animals  and  plants.  The  large 
spherical  mating  cells  might  be  mistaken  for  the  egg 
cells  of  larger  animals.  In  the  globe  animalcule,  Volvox 
globator,  we  find  a  transitional  condition  leading  us 
to  the  production  of  small  (male)  and  large  (female) 


1 84  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

mating  cells,  like  those  regularly  produced  by  the  massive 
plants  and  animals  which  are  built  up  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  "  cells "  or  protoplasmic  units  conjoined 
and  performing  different  services  for  the  common  life. 
Volvox  is  one  of  those  simple  aquatic  organisms  which 
is  not  a  single  cell  but  a  group  of  many  cells  (some 
hundred)  hanging  together — in  this  case  so  as  to  form  a 
hollow  sphere.  All  the  cells  of  an  individual  sphere  are 
alike,  and  have  originated  by  division  from  one  first  cell. 
When  the  "  breeding  season  "  arrives  one  or  two  cells  of 
the  sphere  increase  in  bulk — they  become  "  large  mating 
cells  " — in  fact,  egg  cells.  At  the  same  time  one  or  two 
divide  (without  separating),  so  as  to  form  packets  of 
minute  oblong  cells  with  vibrating  tails.  These  are 
"  small  maters,"  or  "  spermatozoa."  When  ripe  they 
separate  and  swim  away  to  fertilize — that  is  to  say,  to 
fuse  with — the  large  "  mating  cells  "  or  egg  cells  of  other 
Volvox  spheres.  Such  a  Volvox  sphere  as  I  have 
described  is  "  bi-sexual " :  it  produces  both  large  and 
small  mating  cells,  both  male  and  female  reproductive 
cells.  But  sometimes  we  find  that  a  number  of  Volvox 
spheres  produce  only  large  mating  cells  by  the  swelling 
up  of  one  or  two  of  their  constituent  cells.  They  are, 
in  fact,  female  Volvox  spheres.  And  other  Volvox 
spheres  produce  only  packets  of  small  mating  cells  by 
the  splitting  and  change  of  one  or  two  of  their  constituent 
cells.  They  are  male  Volvox  spheres. 

When  we  now  look  at  the  higher  plants  and  animals 
formed  of  aggregations  of  innumerable  cells  (all  derived 
from  the  division  of  a  first  cell — an  embyro  cell  or 
fertilized  egg  cell)  we  find  that  amongst  the  mass  of 
variously  shaped  cells  forming  the  "  tissues "  of  these 
higher  organisms  some  are  set  apart  even  in  early  growth 
as  "  mating  cells "  (gametes  or  reproductive  cells). 


COURTSHIP  185 

Usually  they  are  in  two  groups — namely,  the  ovary,  which 
includes  the  large  mating  cells  or  egg  cells  or  ova ;  and 
the  spermary,  which  includes  the  cells  which  break  up 
into  small  mating  cells  or  sperms.  In  many  animals 
both  ovary  and  spermary  are  present  in  the  same 
individual,  but  in  most  of  the  larger  animals  (insects, 
crustaceans,  and  vertebrates)  either  the  ovary  is  sup- 
pressed, when  the  creature  is  called  a  male,  and  produces 
only  small  mating  cells,  or  the  spermary  is  suppressed, 
and  the  creature  is  a  female,  producing  only  egg  cells. 
In  both  cases  there  may  be  a  distinct  but  minute  repre- 
sentative of  the  suppressed  organ  present  and  recognizable 
by  its  microscopic  structure. 

The  point  in  this  history,  which  seems  to  be  important 
and  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  is  that  the  small  mating 
cell  is  in  all  the  stages  cited  actively  mobile  and  swims 
rapidly  through  water  when  its  producer  is  an  aquatic 
animal.  The  large  mating  cell  is  quiescent.  It  is  more 
or  less  swollen  with  granular  nutrient  particles — often 
vastly  so  enlarged.  It  already  is  acting  the  maternal 
part,  preparing  nourishment  for  the  growing  embryo 
which  will  develop  from  its  protoplasm  when  fused  with 
that  of  the  relatively  tiny  but  active  male  mating  cell. 
And  it  is  certainly  very  noteworthy  that  when  these  two 
kinds  of  mating  cells  become  separated  in  distinct 
"  carriers "  (that  is  to  say,  produced  one  without  the 
other  in  what  are  called  male  and  female  individuals), 
the  primitive  character  of  the  mating  cells — whichever 
of  the  two  kinds  they  be — impresses  itself  on  the  com- 
plex elaborate  many-celled  organism  in  which  they  arise. 
The  male  is  the  more  active,  the  more  disposed  to 
travel.  It  is  always  the  male  who  seeks,  courts,  woos, 
and  attacks  the  female,  as  the  small  mating  cells  seek 
and  attack  the  larger  mating  cells.  The  character  and 


1 86  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

conduct  of  the  female  animal  is  largely  (not  without 
deviations  and  additions)  based  on  that  of  the  larger 
mating  cell  or  macro-gamete ;  she  is  the  one  who  waits, 
is  sought,  is  courted,  and  wooed.  And  like  the  egg 
cells  of  which  she  is  the  vehicle  and  envelope,  she  is 
specially  concerned  in  the  provision  of  nutriment  for  the 
early  growth  of  the  young. 

Courtship,  then,  seems  to  have  had  its  foundations 
very  deeply  laid,  even  in  the  earliest  and  simplest  forms 
of  life — at  the  time  when  the  principle  of  the  union  of 
the  substance  of  two  strains  to  produce  a  new  generation 
was  established,  and  when,  further,  the  active,  seeking 
male  cell  was  differentiated  from  the  immobile  nourishing 
female  cell. 

Amongst  the  polyps,  sea-anemones,  and  jelly-fish, 
though  we  frequently  find  that  there  are  distinct  males 
and  females,  there  is  no  courtship.  This  is  connected 
with  the  fact  that,  like  plants,  they  are  (excepting  the 
jelly-fish)  fixed  and  immobile.  The  male  cannot  "  court  " 
the  female,  because  neither  of  them  can  approach  the 
other.  I  once  saw  in  the  aquarium  at  Naples  a  sudden 
and  simultaneous  discharge  of  a  white  cloud,  like  dust, 
into  the  water  from  half  the  magnificent  sea-anemones 
fixed  and  immobile  in  three  large  tanks.  The  cloud 
consisted  of  millions  of  the  small  "  mating  cells/'  and 
were  thrown  off  by  the  males.  They  were  carried  far 
and  wide  by  the  stream  running  through  the  tanks. 
In  the  sea  such  a  discharge  would  be  carried  along  by 
currents,  and  might  fertilize  egg-bearing  sea-anemones  of 
the  same  species  growing  a  mile  or  two  away. 

It  is  when  we  have  to  do  with  actively  moving 
animals  that  "  courtship  "  comes  into  existence.  It  has 


COURTSHIP  187 

many  features  and  phases,  which  comprise  simple  dis- 
covery of  the  female  and  presentation  of  himself  by  the 
courting  male ;  attempts  to  secure  the  female's  attention, 
and  to  fascinate  and  more  or  less  hypnotize  her,  by  display 
of  brilliant  colours  or  unusual  and  astonishing  poses  or 
movements  (such  as  dancing)  on  the  part  of  the  male ; 
efforts  of  the  male  to  attach  the  female  to  himself,  and 
deadly,  often  fatal,  combats  with  other  males,  in  order  to 
drive  them  off  and  secure  a  recognized  and  respected  soli- 
tude for  himself  and  his  mate.  The  courtship  of  many 
insects,  crustaceans,  molluscs,  fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  and 
mammals  has  been  watched  and  recorded  in  regard  to  these 
details.  Naturally  enough,  it  is  in  the  higher  forms,  the 
birds  and  the  mammals,  that  there  are  the  most  elaborate 
and  intelligible  proceedings  in  regard  to  the  attraction  of 
the  female.  But  when  we  compare  what  birds  or,  in  fact, 
any  animal,  does  with  what  man  does,  we  must  remember 
that  man  has,  as  compared  with  them,  an  immense 
memory,  and  has  also  consciousness.  All  other  animals 
are  to  a  very  large  extent  mere  automata,  pleasurably 
conscious,  perhaps  (in  the  higher  forms),  of  the  passing 
moment  and  of  the  actions  which  they  are  instinctively 
performing,  but  without  any  understanding  or  thought 
on  the  subject.  They  cannot  think  because,  though 
some  of  them  are  endowed  to  a  limited  extent  with 
memory,  they  have  not  arrived  at  the  human  stage  of 
mental  development  when  consciousness  takes  account 
of  memory,  a  memory  of  enormously  increased  variety 
and  duration. 

Man  has  more  and  more,  as  he  has  advanced  in 
mental  growth,  rejected  the  unreasoning  instinctive 
classes  of  action,  and  substituted  for  them  action  based 
on  his  own  experience  and  conscious  memory,  action 
which  is  the  result  of  education — not  the  education  of 


1 88  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  school,  but  that  of  life  in  all  its  variety.  But  in 
many  things  he  is  still  entirely  guided  by  unreasoning 
mechanical  instinct,  and  in  others  he  is  partly  impelled 
by  the  old  inherited  instinct,  partly  restrained  and  guided 
by  reason  based  on  experience  and  memory.  This  makes 
the  comparison  of  the  courting  man  with  the  courting 
animal  doubly  interesting.  We  ought  to  distinguish 
what  he  is  doing  as  a  result  of  ancient  inherited 
mechanism  from  what  he  is  doing  as  a  result  of  conscious 
observation,  memory,  and  reasoning. 


CHAPTER    XXI 
COURTSHIP  IN  ANIMALS  AND  MAN 

THE  German  poet  Schiller  arrived  long  ago  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  machinery  of  the  world  is  driven 
by  hunger  and  by  love.  If  we  join  with  hunger,  which  is 
the  craving  of  the  individual  for  nourishment,  the  activities 
which  aim  at  self-defence, — whether  against  competitors 
for  food,  against  would-be  devourers,  or  against  dangers 
to  life  and  limb,  from  storm,  flood,  and  temperature, — 
we  may  accept  Schiller's  statement  as  equivalent  to  this, 
namely,  that  the  activities  and  the  mechanisms  of  living 
things  are  related  to  two  great  ends — the  preservation 
of  the  individual  and  the  preservation  of  the  race. 
"  Love,"  or  what  we  should  call  in  more  discriminating 
language  "  amorousness,"  or  the  "  mating  hunger,"  is 
the  absolute  and  inherent  attribute  of  living  things  upon 
which  the  preservation  of  the  race  depends.  The  pre- 
servation of  the  individual  is  of  less  importance  in  the 
scheme  of  Nature  than  the  preservation  of  the  race,  and 
we  find  that  food-hunger  and  the  risk  of  dangers  of  all 
kinds  to  the  continuance  of  an  individual  life  are  made 
of  no  account  when  satisfaction  of  mate-hunger  and  the 
preservation  and  perpetuation  of  the  race  requires  the 
sacrifice  or  the  shortening  of  the  life,  or  the  permanent 
distortion  or  self-immolation  of  the  individual.  Eccentric 
behaviour  and  strange  exaggeration  of  form  and  colour, 

as  judged  by  the   standard  of   preservation  of  the   in- 

189 


190  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

dividual,  are  found  to  be  explained  as  due  to  structures 
(nervous  or  other)  implanted  in  the  race  by  natural 
selection,  because,  and  in  consequence  of,  the  fact  that 
they  tend  to  the  satisfaction  of  mate-hunger,  and  conse- 
quently to  the  preservation  of  the  race. 

The  fact  that  the  male  animal  seeks  out  the  female 
in  order  to  mate  with  her  leads  to  a  competition 
amongst  males  in  "  courtship,"  both  in  man  and  in  the 
higher  and  lower  grades  of  the  animal  series.  "  Court- 
ship "  comprises  many  procedures.  Among  them  are 
the  seizing  and  sometimes  carrying  off  of  the  female  by 
the  mate-seeking  male ;  or  else  the  attraction  of  the 
attention  of  the  female  by  the  male,  and  her  subsequent 
fascination  by  him,  followed  by  her  responsive  excitement 
and  assent  to  union.  Fighting,  often  to  the  death,  between 
rival  suitors  not  unfrequently  occurs. 

Any  animal  practising  the  first  of  these  arts  of 
courtship  must  have  developed  greater  strength  and  size 
than  the  female,  and  special  claws  or  jaws  or  prehensile 
limbs  which  will  become  emphasized  and  increased  in 
size  by  the  success  of  the  better-endowed  males,  and 
their  consequent  "  natural  selection  "  as  parents.  This 
elementary  and  violent  form  of  courtship  is  found  in 
primitive  man,  and  is  inferred  to  exist  amongst  the 
higher  apes.  It  is  also  seen  in  many  mammals,  and  in 
frogs  and  toads,  and  in  some  of  the  Crustacea  and  insects 
which  are  provided  with  powerful  claws,  jaws,  or  limbs. 

The  second  set  of  "  courtship "  activities  mentioned 
above,  which  are  of  a  persuasive  (often  hypnotic)  and 
non-violent  nature,  are  more  widely  distributed  and 
varied.  They  include  a  number  which  come  under  the 
general  head  of  "display,"  whether  the  appeal  be  by 


COURTSHIP  IN  ANIMALS  AND  MAN        191 

sound  (the  voice),  by  odour,  or  by  strange  antics  and 
gorgeous  colour.  They  involve  the  production  of  the 
most  remarkable  special  structures  ;  and  by  their  appeal 
to  the  human  sense  of  hearing,  smell,  and  sight  are  in 
many  cases  well  known  and  familiar  to  us.  Following 
upon  "  display  "  are  what  may  be  classed  as  "  caresses  " 
— attempts  to  soothe  and  to  subjugate  the  female  by  the ' 
sense  of  touch. 

The  third  kind  of  activity  developed  in  "  courtship  " 
is  that  of  fighting — fighting  to  the  death  with  other  suitors. 
It  involves  the  production  of  all  those  natural  weapons, 
horns,  tusks,  and  special  claws  or  spurs  with  which  male 
animals  fight  one  another  at  the  breeding  season.  It 
also  involves  that  perfection  of  muscular  strength, 
rapidity,  and  skill  in  action  which  have  enabled  one 
male  to  triumph  over  others,  and  whilst  destroying  or 
banishing  his  less  perfect  opponent  to  transmit  his  own 
superior  qualities  to  his  offspring.  It  seems  that  to  this 
incessantly  recurring  and  relentless  struggle  between 
males,  in  courtship  for  the  favour  of  the  female,  more 
rapid  and  important  changes  and  developments  of 
animal  structure  and  endowments  are  due  than  to  the 
more  obvious  competition  for  food,  safety  from  enemies, 
and  shelter.  Thus  muscular  power,  grasping  and  ag- 
gressive weapons,  wonderful  colours,  forms  and  patterns 
which  catch  the  eye,  perfumes  and  powers  of  song  and 
arresting  cries,  instinctive  antics  and  caresses,  have  been 
developed  in  the  males  and  transmitted  to  some  extent 
to  both  sexes,  but  predominantly  to  the  males. 

Mr.  Pycraft,  in  his  book  on   this   subject,1  remarks 
that  the  tremendous  power  of  "  mate-hunger  "  has  been 
overlooked  by  a  strange  confusion  of  cause  and  effect. 
1  "The  Courtship  of  Animals,"  Hutchinson,  1913. 


192  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Almost  universally  its  sequel,  the  production  of  offspring, 
has  been  regarded  as  the  dominant  instinct  in  the  higher 
animals,  but  this  view  has  no  foundation  in  fact.  Desire, 
for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  which  its  gratification  affords, 
and  not  its  consequences,  is  the  only  hold  on  life  which 
any  race  possesses.  And  this  is  true  both  in  the  case 
of  man  himself  and  of  the  beasts  that  perish.  Those 
whose  business  it  is,  for  one  reason  or  another,  to  study 
these  emotions,  know  well  that  "mate-hunger"  may  be 
as  ravenous  as  food-hunger,  and  that,  with  some  excep- 
tions, it  is  immensely  more  insistent  in  the  males  than 
in  the  females.  But  for  this  appetite,  reproduction  in 
many  species  could  not  take  place,  for  the  sexes  often 
live  far  apart,  and  mates  are  only  to  be  won  after 
desperate  conflict  with  powerful  rivals  no  less  inflamed. 
It  is  idle  to  speak  of  an  equality  between  the  sexes  in 
this  matter,  either  in  regard  to  animals  or  in  the  human 
race.  The  male  is  dominated  by  the  desire  to  gratify  the 
sexual  appetite  ;  in  the  female  this  is  modified  by  the 
stimulation  of  other  instincts  concerned  with  the  care  of 
offspring.  Amorousness  is  the  underlying  factor  which 
has  shaped  and  is  sustaining  human  society,  and  is  no 
less  powerful  among  the  lower  animals.  Much  that  is 
considered  contrary  to  human  nature,  and  either  out- 
rageous or  ridiculous,  would  be  understood  and  wisely 
dealt  with  if  knowledge  of  nature,  including  man's  nature, 
were  cultivated,  and  took  the  place  of  vain  assertions  as  to 
"  what  should  be,"  accompanied  by  ignorance  of"  what  is." 

An  excellent  sample  of  the  more  violent  method  of 
"  courtship  by  seizure  "  is  found  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
northern  fur-seal  as  described  by  Mr.  Pycraft.  The  old 
bulls,  after  spending  the  greater  part  of  the  year  in  the 
open  sea,  arrive  at  the  rocks  which  serve  as  the  breeding 
grounds  a  full  month  before  the  cows  arrive.  The 


COURTSHIP  IN  ANIMALS  AND  MAN        193 

younger  bulls  attempt,  but  fail,  to  get  a  place  on  the 
rocks.  The  bull  holding  the  most  advantageous  place — 
the  nearest  to  the  landing-place — starts  the  collecting  of 
cows.  Having  seized  the  first  arrival,  he  places  her  by 
his  side.  As  the  later  females  arrive  he  proceeds  in  the 
same  way.  He  soon  has  "  herded  "  more  cows  than  he 
can  control.  He  cannot  be  in  two  places  at  once,  and 
in  scuttling  off  to  chastise  some  covetous  neighbour  who 
is  eloping  with  one  of  his  wives,  one  or  more  bulls  on  the 
opposite  side  of  his  harem  proceed  to  make  captures 
from  his  horde.  This  sort  of  thing  goes  on  till  all  the 
cows  have  been  appropriated,  according  to  the  herding 
and  holding  capacities  of  the  bulls,  leaving  a  crowd  of 
envious  bachelors  in  the  background  not  strong  enough 
or  courageous  enough  to  fight.  Each  bull  is  master  of 
the  situation,  whether  his  harem  consists  of  five  cows  or 
fifty.  If  a  cow  is  restless  he  growls  at  her.  If  she  tries 
to  escape  he  fiercely  bites  her,  and  if  she  tries  to  outrun 
him  he  seizes  her  by  the  skin  of  the  neck  and  tosses  her 
back,  often  torn  and  bleeding,  into  the  family  circle. 
Sometimes  a  cow  is  killed  by  the  struggle  of  two  bulls 
to  pull  her  in  opposite  directions,  and  in  this  way  the 
more  querulous  and  discontented  cows  are  eliminated  in 
each  generation,  and  the  peculiarly  gentle  and  passive 
nature  characteristic  of  the  cow  seals  has  been  developed. 
For  three  long  months  the  bull  seal  has  to  keep  watch 
and  ward  fasting.  This  is  a  most  exceptional  strain  and 
effort,  for  in  other  animals  fasting  is  associated  with 
absolute  rest  and  sleep.  The  bull  fur-seal  arrives  at  the 
breeding  ground  fat  and  in  fine  condition ;  he  leaves  it, 
though  triumphant,  a  starved  and  battered  wreck. 

The  more  agreeable  arts  of  courtship  are  exhibited 
by    birds    in    greatest    variety    and     in     more    familiar 
examples  than  in  any  other  animals.     The  use  of  odours 
13 


194  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

secreted  by  special  glands  as  attractions  to  the  females 
is  frequent  in  the  mammals — such  as  the  musk-deer, 
the  musk-rat,  the  civet,  and  many  common  hoofed 
animals,  such  as  deer,  antelopes,  goats,  and  sheep — but 
has  not  been  noticed  in  birds,  though  known  in  butter- 
flies and  moths.  It  is  in  the  use  of  the  voice  in  singing 
and  in  the  special  display  of  gorgeous  plumage,  grown, 
so  to  speak,  for  the  purpose  at  the  breeding  season,  and 
in  strutting,  fantastic  posturing,  and  in  dancing  that  the 
male  bird  excels.  Not  all  birds  do  all  these  things,  and 
female  birds  do  none  of  them  as  a  rule. 

I  must  break  off  for  a  moment  here  to  warn  the 
reader  that  whilst  we  find  it  difficult  not  to  speak  of 
these  activities  of  the  male  bird  and  male  animals 
generally  in  the  same  terms  as  we  speak  of  such 
behaviours  in  human  beings,  there  is  yet  a  fundamental 
difference  between  the  two  cases  which  is  apt  to  be  lost 
sight  of  in  consequence  of  the  language  used.  When 
the  musk-deer  and  other  mammals  attract  the  female 
by  a  scent,  they  have  no  consciousness  or  understanding 
of  what  they  are  doing.  They  do  not  as  a  matter  of 
thought  and  intention  produce  their  perfume  any  more 
than  the  birds  produce  their  gay  breeding  plumage 
by  "taking  thought,"  or  the  stag  his  great  antlers  or 
the  boar  his  tusks.  Man  is,  on  the  contrary,  in  these 
matters,  as  in  many  others,  ill-provided  with  natural 
automatically-growing  mechanisms  of  life-saving  or  race- 
perpetuating  importance.  Though  the  behaviour  of  man 
in  courtship  is  singularly  like  that  of  many  animals,  he 
has  not  inherited  an  automatically-produced  bundle  of 
charms  to  allure  the  other  sex.  He  has  had  to  think 
the  matter  out  and  to  consciously  and  deliberately 
"  make  "  or  procure  from  external  sources  both  perfumes 
and  coloured  decorations  and  arresting  (often  absurd  and 


COURTSHIP  IN  ANIMALS  AND  MAN        195 

astounding)  "  costumes."  The  males  of  the  most  savage 
and  primitive  races  of  men  are  like  the  bigger  apes, 
devoid  of  natural  "  charms  "  ;  they  do  not  allure  by  sweet 
odours,  by  brilliant  colours,  nor  by  caressing  musical 
voices.  They  have  not  these  possessions  as  natural 
growths  of  their  own  bodies,  and  they  have  not  yet 
learned — probably  not  yet  desired — to  "  make "  or  to 
"  procure  "  them.  There  is  consequently  a  great  gulf  in 
kind  between  many  of  the  details  of  animal  and  human 
courtship.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  how  the  extinct 
creatures  between  ape  and  man  stood  in  this  respect. 

In  the  matter  of  forcible  seizure  the  conduct  of  the 
primitive  man  is  on  precisely  the  same  footing  as  that 
of  the  fur-seal.  As  to  when  he  began  to  learn  from  the 
birds  and  to  do  consciously  what  they  do  unconsciously 
— no  one  knows.  In  regard  to  the  fighting  with  other 
males — man  appears  at  a  very  early  period  to  have 
given  up  the  use  of  his  natural  weapons,  the  teeth,  and 
to  have  discovered  the  greater  utility  of  sharp  stones 
and  heavy  clubs,  and  thus  to  have  again  placed  himself 
apart  from  male  animals,  which  depend  on  and  develop 
automatically  their  tusks,  horns,  and  claws  in  conse- 
quence of  their  value  in  fighting.  The  great  interest  of 
the  jaw  of  the  man-like  Eoanthropus  from  Piltdown  is 
that  it  was  still  fitted  with  a  large  canine  tooth  like  that 
of  a  gorilla,  big  enough  to  be  useful  in  a  fight  with  another 
Piltdowner  (see  p.  287).  But  it  dwindled,  and  in  the 
course  of  time  very  early  man-like  extinct  creatures  were 
developed  who  had  ceased  to  have  big  canines.  They 
made  use  of  chipped  flints  instead. 

This  substitution  by  man  of  "  extraneous  "  weapons, 
decorations,  and  alluring  appeals  to  the  senses  in  place 
of  those  "  intrinsic  "  to  the  animal  body  is  all  the  more 


196  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

interesting,  since  we  find  that  such  substitution  is  already 
made  by  a  number  of  birds,  as,  for  instance,  the  magpie 
and  the  jackdaw,  who  collect  all  sorts  of  bright  objects. 
The  allied  bower-bird  of  Australia  makes  a  "  play-run  "  or 
reception-room  in  which  he  places  shells  and  bits  of  bone 
to  attract  the  female,  and  the  gardener  bird  of  New  Guinea 
clears  a  space  in  the  scrub,  roughly  fences  it  and  decorates  it 
daily  with  bright-coloured  flowers  and  mushrooms,  freshly 
gathered  and  placed  there  by  him,  as  any  human  bachelor 
may  decorate  his  sitting-room  for  the  delectation  of  his 
lady  friends  !  It  is  a  very  noteworthy  fact  that  these  birds, 
which  use  extraneous  decorative  objects  as  lures,  are  them- 
selves of  dull  plumage,  but  are  allied  to  the  wonderful 
group  of  Birds  of  Paradise,  which  show  the  greatest  variety 
and  brilliance  of  intrinsic  decorative  plumage  known 
among  birds.  The  love  of  brilliant  decoration  is  equally 
keen  in  both  groups,  and  is  gratified  in  the  one  case  by 
the  use  of  extrinsic  objects,  in  the  other  by  the  growth 
of  intrinsic  plumage.  It  appears  that  that  strangely 
anthropoid  bird — the  penguin — or  rather  one  species  of 
penguin,  familiar  to  Captain  Scott  and  his  companions 
in  the  Antarctic,  has  a  similar  habit  of  using  an  extrane- 
ous object  as  a  gift  or,  shall  we  say,  an  excuse  for  an 
introduction  when  courting.  The  male  penguin  is  shown 
in  Mr.  Poynting's  wonderful  cinema  films  of  the  Antarctic, 
picking  up  a  well-shaped  stone  of  some  size  and  ad- 
vancing with  it  in  his  beak  to  the  lady  penguin  whom  he 
has  selected  for  his  addresses.  He  places  the  stone  at 
her  feet,  and  retires  a  pace  or  two  watching  her.  It  is  as 
though  he  said,  "  I  am  ready  to  build  for  you  a  first-class 
nest ;  best  stones  only  used,  of  which  this  is  a  sample." 
If  he  is  fortunate  she  looks  at  the  stone  and  then  at  him, 
and  without  a  word  waddles  to  his  side.  Without  more 
ado  she  accepts  his  proposal,  and  the  work  of  construct- 
ing the  stone-built  nest  is  rapidly  pushed  on. 


CHAPTER    XXII 
COURTSHIP  AND  DISPLAY 

THE  "displays"  made  by  male  birds  and  by  some 
other  animals  which  lead  to  the  "  fascination "  of 
the  females,  and  apparently  to  a  condition  similar  to 
that  which  is  called  "  hypnotic  "  in  man,  are  very  remark- 
able. One  is  tempted  to  say  that  these  "  displays  "  are 
made  "  for  the  purpose  "  of  fascinating  the  female.  But 
though  that  would  be  correct  in  describing  similar  pro- 
ceedings on  the  part  of  a  human  "  gallant,"  it  is  not 
strictly  so  in  the  case  of  animals,  any  more  than  it  is 
true  that  a  bird  grows  its  fine  plumage  "  for  the  purpose  " 
of  attracting  the  female.  The  male  bird  finds  itself 
provided  with  fine  feathers,  and  has  probably  a  brief 
conscious  pleasure  in  the  fact,  just  as  it  has  rn  singing, 
but  it  has,  of  course,  no  control  over  the  growth  of 
its  feathers,  nor  conscious  purpose  in  their  production. 
Similarly,  it  has  no  knowledge  or  consciousness  of  a 
purpose  in  the  antics  of  "  display,"  nor  in  singing  its 
melodious  song,  though  certainly  it  is  gratified,  and  has 
pleasurable  sensations  in  the  instinctive  performances 
which  it  finds  itself  going  through.  The  great  French 
entomologist,  Fabre,  who  has  more  minutely  and 
thoroughly  studied  the  wonderful  proceedings  of  insects 
in  regard  to  these  matters  and  others,  such  as  nest 
building,  care  and  provision  for  young,  deliberately  says, 

"  Us  ne  savent  rien  de  rien  "—they  know  nothing  about 

197 


198  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

anything !  And  that  is  true  with  only  small  exception 
about  even  the  highest  animals  until  we  come  to  man. 
Some  of  the  higher  animals  have  a  brief  and  fleeting 
"  consciousness "  of  what  they  are  doing,  and  some  of 
the  hairy  quadrupeds  nearest  to  man  have  the  power  of 
"  recollecting " ;  that  is  to  say,  have  in  a  small  degree 
conscious  memory,  and  actually  do  reason  and  make  use 
of  their  memory  of  their  own  individual  experience  to  a 
very  small  and  limited  degree. 

It  is  only  in  man  that  the  power  of  reasoning — the 
conscious  use  of  memory,  of  deciding  on  this  or  that 
course  of  action  by  a  conscious  appeal  to  the  record 
of  the  individual's  experience  inscribed  in  the  substance 
of  the  brain — becomes  a  regular  and  constant  procedure. 
And  in  the  lowest  races  of  man — as,  for  instance,  the 
Australian  "  black  fellows  " — this  power  is  much  less 
developed  than  in  higher  races,  owing  to  the  feebleness 
of  their  memory.  Just  as  a  little  child  or  an  old  man 
recognizes  the  fact  that  his  memory  is  bad,  so  does  the 
Australian  native  confess  to  the  white  man  that  he 
cannot  remember,  and  marvels  at  the  memory  of  the 
white  man,  who,  he  says,  can  see  both  what  is  behind 
and  what  is  to  come. 

"  Displays  "  are  often  made  by  birds  which  have  no 
very  brilliant  colours.  The  ruff — a  bird  of  agreeable 
but  sombre  plumage — spreads  out  a  ruff  of  feathers 
which  grows  round  his  neck  in  the  breeding  season 
and  stands  in  a  prominent  position  alone  on  the  open 
ground  with  his  head  facing  downwards  and  his  long 
beak  nearly  touching  the  ground.  These  birds  are  to 
be  seen  behaving  in  this  way  at  the  Zoological  Gardens 
in  London.  When  thus  posed  they  have  a  comical 
appearance  of  being  absorbed  in  profound  thought. 


COURTSHIP  AND  DISPLAY  199 

Suddenly,  after  posing  for  perhaps  ten  minutes  or  more 
immovably  in  this  attitude,  the  ruff  starts  into  life, 
running  in  a  wide  circle  and  spreading  his  wings,  and 
then  as  suddenly  relapses  into  his  pose,  with  downcast 
eyes  and  beak  touching  the  ground.  This,  it  appears, 
is  all  a  challenge  to  any  other  ruff  who  ventures  near 
him,  and  often  results  in  a  fight  with  another  individual 
who  is  offended  by  his  "  swagger  "  and  attacks  him.  It 
also  is  an  invitation  and  attraction  to  the  female  or 
"  reeve  "  who  is  on  the  look  out  for  a  mate. 

The  display  of  the  bustard,  though  his  feathers  are 
only  light  brown  and  white,  is  a  very  strange  and 
arresting  performance.  In  ordinary  circumstances  his 
feathers  are  nicely  smoothed  down,  and  he  looks  neat 
and  fit.  But  at  the  breeding  season  he  behaves  like 
Malvolio  when  he  wore  cross-garters  to  please  his  lady. 
He  approaches  two  or  three  females  who  are  quietly 
feeding,  and  throwing  his  head  back  and  his  chest 
forward,  swelling  his  neck  out  with  inspired  air  and 
reflecting  his  tail  feathers  inside  out  (so  to  speak)  over 
his  back,  he  makes  the  most  extraordinary  havoc  of 
his  previously  neat  costume.  The  feathers  are  made 
to  stand  up  and  reflected  backwards  in  groups,  and 
show  their  underlying  white  surfaces  round  the  head, 
on  the  chest,  and  on  the  wings  and  back,  so  that  he 
suggests  the  appearance  of  a  portly  old  gentleman,  in 
full  evening  dress,  the  worse  for  liquor,  his  high  collar 
unbuttoned  and  flapping,  his  short  "  front "  bulging  and 
loose,  whilst  he  maintains  all  the  time  a  pompous  and 
dignified  pose  strangely  inconsistent  with  his  disordered 
costume  and  hesitating  gait.  As  he  struts  and  poses 
the  lady  bustards,  though  intensely  interested  in  his 
strange  behaviour,  make  no  sign,  and  continue  pecking 
for  food,  as  who  should  say  with  Beatrice,  "I  wonder 


200  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

that  you  will  still  be  talking,  Signior  Benedick  :  nobody 
marks  you."  After  enduring  this  snubbing  on  several 
occasions  and  doggedly  continuing  to  display  his  antics, 
the  persistent  bustard  reaps  his  reward.  One  among 
the  dissembling  females  can  no  longer  keep  up  the 
pretence  of  indifference,  and  suddenly  runs  off,  inviting 
him  to  follow  her  !  The  same  general  scheme  of  play 
is  seen  in  the  case  of  the  peacock,  who  spreads  his 
magnificent  "  train "  around  his  head  and  neck  (not  to 
be  confused  with  his  tail,  as  it  often  is)  ;  in  the  case  of 
the  turkey,  bubblyjock,  or  gobble-cock,  who  struts  and 
shows  off  his  coloured  wattles  and  fine  feathers  ;  in 
that  of  the  domestic  fowl,  who  raises  his  head  and  neck, 
crows,  and  has  a  pretty  trick  of  scraping  the  ground 
with  his  wing.  Many  other  birds  perform  special  antics 
suited  to  the  display  of  their  special  plumage.  Among 
the  most  varied  and  remarkable  are  those  of  the  Birds 
of  Paradise,  which  drop  through  the  air,  hang  upside 
down  on  tree  twigs,  and  pose  themselves  variously 
(often  warbling  the  while  seductive  notes)  according 
to  the  particular  beauties  which  distinguish  each  species. 
Cranes  and  some  other  birds  dance  in  groups  at  the 
mating  season — really  dance,  making  steps  and  jumps 
with  the  legs  and  movements  of  the  wings — in  rhythm. 

Reptiles  do  only  a  little  in  the  way  of  display.  The 
male  newt  gets  a  crest  in  the  spring  like  the  wanton 
lapwing  of  Tennyson,  and  a  splendid  orange-red  colour 
on  the  belly.  Male  fishes  often  develop  "  display " 
colours  at  the  breeding  season,  and  it  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  their  eyes  and  brains  are  not  sensitive 
to  colour.  We  have  a  familiar  instance  in  the  male 
of  our  common  little  stickleback,  who,  in  early  summer, 
builds,  in  his  native  pond,  his  nest  of  fragments  of 
weed  cemented  together,  with  a  wide  entrance  and  a 


COURTSHIP  AND  DISPLAY  201 

back  door.  He  then  becomes  brilliant  blood-red  on 
the  belly  (he  was  white  before)  and  dark  green  on  the 
back,  and  swims  about  near  the  nest,  and  has  an 
occasional  fight  with  a  competitive  neighbour,  whilst 
hustling  and  shepherding  any  female  stickleback  he  may 
meet  so  as  to  make  her  enter  it.  She  enters  it  alone,  and 
lays  an  egg,  or,  perhaps,  two  or  three,  and  then  goes  out 
by  the  back-door !  The  male,  well  pleased,  at  once  goes 
into  the  nest,  fertilizes  the  eggs,  and  swims  out  again  to 
get  another  contribution  to  his  future  family.  After 
several  females  have  thus  deposited  eggs  in  his  nest, 
and  he  has  fertilized  them,  he  keeps  guard  for  many 
days  whilst  the  young  are  developing.  Even  when 
they  are  hatched  he  is  in  constant  attendance  on  them, 
for  there  is  danger  of  their  being  eaten — not  by  other 
males,  who  are  as  busy  as  he  is,  but  by  the  emancipated 
females,  who  neither  build  the  nest  nor  care  for  the 
young,  but  just  lay  an  egg  here  and  an  egg  there  when 
invited,  and  pursue  a  selfish  life  of  amusement  and 
voracious  feeding. 

It  is  still  doubtful  how  far  male  insects  of  the 
true  six-legged  group  appeal  to  the  females  by  colour- 
display,  even  when  they  are  brightly  coloured,  or  in 
other  ways  than  by  perfumes  (which  they  do  very 
generally),  but  among  the  spiders  there  are  some  kinds 
(not  common  ones)  in  which  the  males  have  on  the 
front  of  the  body  one  or  two  extraordinarily  brilliant 
spots  of  colour  (red,  apple-green,  or  yellow).  The 
male  moves  round  the  female  in  courtship,  and  poses 
himself  in  most  curious  attitudes,  so  as  to  exhibit  the 
brilliant  colour  to  her ;  forcing  it,  as  it  were,  on  her 
attention.  In  other  species  of  spiders  the  male  dances 
and  circles  round  the  female,  making  curious  and  definite 
antics.  Some  spiders  also  have  rasp-like  organs',  with 


202  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  xNATURALIST 

which  they  can  make  a  kind  of  singing  note,  which  appears 
to  fascinate  the  other  sex.  The  vibration  of  a  tuning- 
fork  will  cause  some  spiders  to  dance !  In  most  spiders 
the  female  is  much  larger  than  the  male — in  some 
cases,  ten  times  as  large — and  the  approach  of  the 
male  to  the  female  is  a  dangerous  business  for  him, 
for  usually  after  his  embrace  she  turns  on  him,  kills 
him,  and  eats  him.  This  is  almost  a  unique  case 
amongst  animals  (though  ancient  legends  tell  of  princesses 
of  similar  ferocity),  and  curiously  enough  is  not  invariable 
among  all  species  of  spider.  In  some  the  males  and 
females  are  quite  friendly.  The  ogre-like  habit  of 
female  spiders  is  not  so  injurious  a  thing  as  it  may 
appear.  For  the  most  nourishing  food  is  thus  afforded 
to  the  female  who  has  to  ripen  her  eggs,  and  take  care 
of  her  young,  whilst,  if  the  male  escapes,  it  appears  that 
he  is  short-lived  and  very  soon  dies.  This  cannibal 
tendency  is  very  strongly  developed  also  in  the  allied 
group,  the  scorpions.  Two  hundred  scorpions  were  left 
in  a  cage  in  the  South  of  France,  whilst  the  naturalist 
(Maupertuis)  who  had  placed  them  there  was  obliged 
to  go  to  Paris,  On  his  return  he  found  one  large, 
very  plump  and  active  scorpion  in  the  box,  surrounded 
by  legs  and  hard  bits  of  the  bodies  of  the  rest.  The 
survivor  was  in  the  position  of  Gilbert's  ancient  mariner, 
who  said  that  he  was  "  the  cook  and  the  mate,  and 
the  captain's  boy  and  the  crew  of  the  Nancy  Bell." 
Scorpions  do  not  perform  any  courtship  display.  The 
males  and  females  are  of  equal  size,  and  dance  together, 
holding  one  another  by  their  large  claws,  before  mating 
and  retiring  into  a  burrow. 

Cuttle-fishes,  squids,  and  the  octopus — called  Cephalo- 
pods — were  considered  by  Aristotle  to  be  the  spiders  of 
the  sea.  It  is  curious  how  they  not  only  have  a  super- 


COURTSHIP  AND  DISPLAY  203 

ficial  resemblance  of  form  to  spiders,  but  in  some  habits 
are  like  them,  though  the  Cephalopods  are  molluscs 
allied  to  snails  and  mussels,  and  are  quite  unlike  spiders 
in  deeper  structure  and  remote  from  the  whole  group  of 
hard-skinned,  jointed-legged  animals  such  as  crustaceans, 
spiders,  and  insects.  I  once  had  the  chance  to  see  a 
male  octopus  "  displaying  "  to  a  female  in  one  of  the 
tanks  of  the  aquarium  at  Naples.'  There  were  a  male 
and  a  female  already  living  there  when  we  introduced 
from  another  tank  a  second  male,  which  had  just 
destroyed  and  fed  upon  a  large  lobster,  who  had  him- 
self, with  no  evil  purpose,  crushed  the  head  of  a 
Mediterranean  turtle  foolishly  placed  by  that  animal 
between  the  open  fingers  of  the  lobster's  big  nippers. 
The  new  arrival  promptly  drove  the  earlier  tenant 
octopus  out  of  the  tank.  He  pursued  his  rival  round 
and  round  with  great  rapidity  until  the  latter  leapt 
from  the  surface  of  the  water  (by  a  violent  contraction 
of  the  mantle)  and  escaped  into  the  adjacent  tank. 
Then  the  triumphant  intruder  approached  the  female  — 
floods  of  changing  colour,  reddish-brown,  purple,  and 
yellow,  passing  over  the  surface  of  his  body — and  com- 
menced an  extraordinary  display  with  his  eight  long 
sucker-bearing  arms.  He  made  these  wind  into  close- 
set  flat  spirals  and  again  unwind  and  gracefully  trail  in 
the  water,  when  they  immediately  wound  up  again  in 
spiral  coils.  The  female  watched  this  proceeding  for 
more  than  an  hour,  and  then  they  embraced.  I  could 
not  follow  any  further  details,  but  a  few  days  after  this 
the  female  piled  up  a  number  of  stones,  so  as  to  make 
a  nest  in  shape  like  a  shallow  basin.  We  enticed  the 
male  into  a  net  and  placed  him  in  another  tank,  so  that 
he  should  not  be  able  to  molest  the  female  or  to  devour 
her  offspring,  which  he  would  do  if  he  had  the  chance. 
Then  the  female  laid  her  eggs — minute  oval,  transparent 


204  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

bodies,  each  with  a  long  stalk  and  all  joined  on  to  a 
common  branching  stem  :  the  whole  resembled  a  head  of 
millet  seed.  The  female  tended  her  eggs  by  continually 
pumping  a  stream  of  water  over  them,  and  could  not  be 
driven  from  them.  She  fought  savagely  and  heroically  in 
their  defence.  But  I  succeeded  in  enticing  her  into  a  net 
by  aid  of  a  toothsome  crab,  and  then  took  a  few — only  a 
few — of  the  cherished  eggs,  and  replaced  their  mother 
in  the  tank,  where  she  at  once  resumed  the  "  incubation  " 
of  her  eggs.  For  it  is  an  "  incubation,"  although  one  in 
which  oxygenated  water,  and  not  warmth,  is  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  sitting  of  the  "  hen."  I  was  able  to 
watch  the  development  of  the  young  within  the  trans- 
parent eggs,  which  I  kept  in  a  stream  of  fresh  sea- 
water,  and  I  published  a  short  account  of  what  was 
novel  in  the  growth  of  these  embryos.  It  had  not  been 
studied  previously,  nor  have  I  seen  any  later  account  of 
the  development  of  octopus.  The  true  cuttle-fish,  with 
the  hard  oblong  shell  sunk  in  the  back,  lays  each  egg 
in  a  dark  leathery  shell.  They  look  like  small  grapes, 
and  are  left,  thus  protected,  to  their  fate.  They  have 
been  studied,  both  before  I  obtained  octopus  eggs  and 
since,  in  great  detail.  The  "  squid  "  embeds  her  eggs, 
many  together,  in  bunches  of  long  ringers  of  colourless 
jelly.  Only  the  octopus  and  the  argonaut,  among 
Cephalopods,  are  known  to  give  maternal  care  and 
incubation  to  their  eggs. 


CHAPTER    XXIII 
COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON 

APART  from  the  familiar  instances  of  male  colour- 
decoration  afforded  by  birds,  we  find  that  even 
some  of  the  minute  water-fleas  inhabiting  freshwater 
lakes  and  the  sea,  and  known  as  Crustacea  Entomos- 
traca,  put  on  a  courting  dress  at  the  breeding  season  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  males  become  brilliantly  coloured 
with  patches  of  red  and  blue.  And  among  the  highest 
mammals  we  find  that  the  same  colours  are,  in  some 
cases,  displayed  by  the  males  as  a  fascination  to  the 
females.  This  is  the  case  with  the  males  of  some  of 
the  baboons,  though  not  with  those  of  the  highest  man- 
like apes,  who,  like  the  primitive  "  savage  "  man,  have 
no  decoration,  no  pretty  seductive  ways  appealing  to 
either  the  eye  or  the  ear,  but  rely  on  their  strength  and 
ferocity  to  overawe  and  paralyze  the  female.  In  the 
male  "  mandrill  "  baboon  the  skin  of  the  sides  of  the  great 
snout  is  of  a  deep  blue  colour,  whilst  the  nose  and  a 
tract  behind  it  is  wax-like  and  bright  red.  Not  only 
that,  but  the  buttocks  are  brilliantly  coloured,  a  central 
red  area  passing  at  the  sides  through  rich  purple  to 
pale  blue.  The  animal,  which  is  often  to  be  seen  in 
menageries,  is  evidently  proud  of  this  finely-coloured 
region  of  his  body,  and  turns  it  to  a  visitor  and  remains 
quietly  posed,  so  that  it  may  be  well  seen  and  duly 
admired.  The  hind-quarters  of  other  monkeys,  both 


205 


206  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

male  and  female,  show  a  brilliant  red  colouring  during 
the  mating  season,  and  the  skin  and  hair  of  the  face  is 
variously  coloured,  so  as  to  produce  a  decorative  pattern 
(eyebrows,  moustache,  beard,  nose,  all  strongly  contrasted 
in  colour)  in  the  smaller  monkeys,  usually  more  strikingly 
in  the  males  than  in  the  females.  A  brilliant  emerald- 
green  patch  of  colour  is  shown  in  the  hinder  part  of 
the  body  of  the  male  in  one  species  sometimes  to  be 
seen  at  Regent's  Park. 

The  making  of  sounds  is  a  capacity  possessed  by 
many  animals,  small  and  big.  Often  it  seems  to  have 
no  particular  significance,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
"  humming  "  of  bees  and  flies  and  the  "  droning  "  of 
beetles,  is  the  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  vibration 
of  the  wings.  But  many  animals  make  sounds  as  a 
"  call,"  either  to  other  individuals  of  their  species,  irrespec- 
tive of  sex,  or  more  definitely  as  signals  and  appeals  to 
the  other  sex,  just  as  the  luminosity  which  happens  to 
accompany  certain  necessary  chemical  activities  in  the 
bodies  of  the  lower  animals  has  become  specialized  and 
utilized  in  the  glow-worm  and  other  higher  forms  as  a 
signal  and  appeal.  The  rubbing  of  rough  surfaces 
against  one  another  is  developed  into  a  "  stridulating 
organ  "  which  we  find  in  crickets,  locusts,  scorpions, 
spiders,  and  even  in  marine  Crustacea,  and  it  is  often 
specialized  as  a  sexual  appeal.  The  mere  production  of 
sound  by  tapping  against  wood  is  used  by  the  little 
beetle,  the  death-watch,  as  a  call,  and  is  responded  to 
by  his  mate  with  similar  tapping.  Such  "  tapping "  is 
developed  into  a  remarkable  rhythmic  vibrating  sound 
by  the  birds  called  woodpeckers,  and  has  its  significance 
in  courtship.  But  it  is  chiefly  by  the  inspiration  and 
expiration  of  air  over  vibrating  cords  or  membranes 
called  "  vocal  organs "  that  animals  produce  distinctive 


COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON       207 

and  musical  sounds.  In  most  cases  such  animals  have 
a  more  general  and  simple  "  cry,"  which  is  not  necessarily 
a  sexual  appeal,  but  addressed  to  comrades  generally, 
and  also  a  more  elaborate  cry  or  song  which  is  primarily 
used  by  the  male  as  an  attraction  in  courtship,  but  has 
in  the  case  of  many  birds  been  inherited  from  original 
male  singers  by  the  females  also.  The  "  singing  "  of 
birds — apart  from  simpler  cries  and  calls — is  a  sexual 
address,  an  act  of  courtship.  It  is  a  display  of  power 
and  capacity  on  the  part  of  the  male,  and  that  such  is 
its  character  is  shown  by  the  competition  between  male 
birds  in  the  endeavour  to  "  out-sing  "  one  another.  Some 
birds  become  extraordinarily  excited  in  these  competi- 
tions, which  take  the  place  of  actual  fighting,  the  victor 
who  silences  his  opponents  being  the  winner  of  the 
female  bird,  who  is  at  hand  listening  to  the  competition. 
Caged  chaffinches  are  celebrated  for  their  eagerness  to 
compete  with  one  another  in  singing.  They  deliver 
their  little  song  alternately  until  one  is  exhausted  and 
unable  to  take  up  his  turn.  He  is  vanquished.  So 
excited  do  the  birds  become  that  it  occasionally  happens 
that  one  of  the  competitors  drops  down  dead.  The 
beginning  and  directive  causes  of  the  particular  song  of 
different  kinds  of  birds  is  not  understood.  But  it  is 
well  known  that  they  have  a  great  gift  of  imitation. 
Parrots,  piping  crows,  ravens,  and  other  such  birds  are 
familiar  instances,  whilst  little  birds  such  as  bullfinches 
can  be  trained  to  whistle  the  melodies  which  human 
beings  have  invented.  Even  the  house-sparrow,  which, 
though  allied  to  singing  finches,  never  sings  at  all  when 
in  natural  conditions,  has  been  converted  into  a  songster 
by  bringing  it  up  in  company  with  piping  bullfinches. 

Other  animals  which  cannot  sing  like  the  birds  yet 
use  their  voices  in  courtship.     The  frogs  and  toads  are 


208  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

no  mean  performers  in  this  way,  whilst  cats,  deer,  and 
other  large  animals  are  "  singers,"  of  a  kind,  when  stirred 
by  mate-hunger.  The  monkeys  chatter  and  make 
various  vocal  sounds,  but  the  gibbons  and  man-like 
apes  produce  excessively  loud  and  penetrating  cries. 
These  cries,  though  sometimes  of  fine  note  and  repeated 
rhythmically  (as  in  the  gibbons  and  chimpanzees),  have 
not  the  character  of  song.  The  beginnings  of  song  in 
mankind  are  lost  in  the  mist  of  ages.  The  Australian 
black-fellows  chant  and  dance  with  rhythmic  precision 
and  a  certain  kind  of  melancholy  cadence,  but  they 
never  attempt  to  fascinate  the  other  sex  by  the  use  of 
the  voice  (nor,  so  far  as  is  known,  in  any  other  way),  and, 
indeed,  there  is  a  vast  interval  between  their  vocal  per- 
formances and  the  love-songs  of  modern  civilized  races. 
Man  has  not  inherited  singing  from  his  animal  ancestry, 
but  has  re-invented  it  for  himself.  His  real  knowledge 
and  command  of  "  music  "  is  actually  a  novelty  which 
has  sprung  into  existence  within  the  last  few  hundred 
years. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  animals  of  the  same  species 
are  attracted  to  one  another  by  smell,  and  that  distinct 
species  have  distinct  smells.  Further,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  in  many  cases  the  special  smell  of  either  sex 
attracts  the  other.  But  modern  man  has  so  nearly  lost 
the  sense  of  smell — why  it  is  difficult  to  say,  excepting 
that  it  is  because  it  was  not  of  life-saving  value  to  him 
— that  it  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  estimate  properly  the 
significance  of  perfumes  and  odours.  We  know  that  the 
dog  has  what  to  us  seems  a  marvellous  power  of  tracking 
and  recognizing  by  smell,  and  that  other  animals  appear 
to  be  similarly  endowed,  though  most  usually  we  cannot 
perceive  the  smell  at  all  which  they  recognize  and  follow. 
It  appears  that  nearly  all  the  hairy  quadrupeds  have 


COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON      269 

distinctive  odours,  which  they  and  their  companions  can 
readily  recognize,  secreted  by  certain  glands  in  the  skin 
placed  here  and  there  on  the  body,  often  on  the  legs  and 
toes.  Some  of  these  odours,  like  musk  and  civet,  we 
can  perceive,  though  most  have  no  effect  on  us.  It 
seems  to  be  an  evidence  of  the  absence  of  any  need  for 
man  to  produce  "  perfumes "  by  the  action  of  his  own 
structure  that  he  has  a  feeble  sense  of  smell  and  has  so 
little  perception  of  any  perfumes  or  odours  peculiar  to 
himself  that  he  has  when  civilized  always  made  use  of 
odorous  substances  (perfumes  and  scents)  extracted  from 
other  animals  and  from  plants  for  the  purpose,  before 
the  days  of  cleanliness,  of  masking  the  unpleasant  odours 
of  putrescence  pervading  his  body  and  clothing.  Later, 
when  dirt  became  less  common,  he  made  use  of  perfumes 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  an  agreeable  whiff  to  the 
olfactory  organs  of  his  associates. 

In  insects,  for  instance  in  moths  and  butterflies,  and 
no  doubt  in  most  if  not  all  others,  the  sense  of  smell  is 
astonishingly  keen,  and  serves  as  the  great  guide  and 
attraction  in  courtship  and  the  appeasement  of  mate- 
hunger.  A  single  female  emperor  moth  was  placed  in 
a  box  covered  with  fine  net  in  a  room  with  an  open 
window  in  a  country  house.  In  three  hours  a  dozen 
males  of  this  species  had  entered  the  room,  but  no  other 
moths.  In  twenty-four  hours  there  were  over  a  hundred, 
all  fluttering  around  the  net-covered  box  in  which  was 
the  female.  In  this  and  other  similar  experiments  it 
was  found  that  the  odour  of  the  female  moth,  though 
imperceptible  to  man,  clung  to  the  box  after  she  was 
removed,  and  that,  for  some  days  following,  the  empty 
box  was  nearly  as  powerful  an  attraction  to  the  males 
as  when  it  contained  the  female.  The  antennae  which 
carry  the  olfactory  sense-organs  are  far  larger  in  the 


210  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

males  than  in  the  females,  as  is  also  the  case  in  many 
other  lower  animals  where  smell  is  a  guide  to  mating. 
A  single  female  of  the  vapourer  moth,  which  is  common 
in  the  London  squares  and  parks,  has  been  found  to 
attract  when  placed  in  a  box  in  an  open  window  in 
Gower  Street  a  number  of  males  from  the  neighbouring 
plantations ;  and  such  is  the  penetrating  and  powerful 
character  of  these  odorous  substances  produced  by  female 
moths  that  in  one  species,  in  which  the  female  is  wingless 
and  lives  under  water,  the  odour  escapes  through  the 
water  and  attracts  the  males  in  quantities  to  its  surface. 
The  females  then  arise  from  the  depths,  and,  like  mer- 
maids or  the  witch  of  the  Rhine,  draw  the  infatuated 
males  beneath  the  water  to  love  and  death.  In  several 
butterflies  it  has  been  shown  that  the  males  produce 
sweet  perfumes  on  the  surface  of  the  wings,  which  can 
be  detected  as  such  by  man,  and  act  as  stimulants  to  the 
mate-hunger  of  the  female  butterflies,  which  follow  the 
scented  male  in  numbers.  The  sense  of  smell  is  thus 
seen  to  be  a  much  more  powerful  guide  in  insects  than 
might  be  supposed,  and  it  is  of  equally  great  importance 
to  them  in  other  enterprises  and  activities  of  life  besides 
those  of  courtship.  It  has  also  a  leading  importance  in 
all  the  lower  and  lowermost  animals,  and  is  the  ultimate 
guide  (for  smell  and  taste  are  not  separable  in  such 
simple  forms)  of  the  motile  spermatic  filament  in  its 
journey  to  the  egg  cell. 

I  have  in  the  course  of  these  notes  on  "  Courtship  " 
more  than  once  stated  that  though  man  shares  in 
common  with  all  other  animals  the  ultimate  impulse  to 
"  courtship,"  namely,  "  mate-hunger,"  yet  that  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  he  has  mechanically  in- 
herited from  animal  ancestors  (as  they  do)  those  methods 
of  attracting  and  endeavouring  to  fascinate  the  female, 


COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON       211 

such  as  the  use  of  gay  costume,  dancing  and  posing, 
beautiful  singing,  sweet  perfume,  and  gentle  caresses, 
which,  at  various  phases  of  his  development,  he  has 
practised.  True,  these  methods  are  also  practised  by  a 
variety  of  animals,  but  not  by  man's  immediate  ape-like 
ancestors.  None  of  these  means  of  courtship  are  in- 
herited instincts  or  structures  in  man  as  they  are  in  animals. 
All  have  been  arrived  at  and  devised  by  man  afresh,  as 
the  result  of  "  taking  thought."  And  in  the  latest  advance 
of  civilization  some  of  them  have  been  to  a  large  extent 
either  discarded  or,  curiously  enough,  handed  over  to  the 
female  sex.  It  is  the  woman  now  who  endeavours  to 
captivate  the  man  by  a  display  of  brave  colours,  clothes, 
plumes,  and  jewellery,  and  by  exquisite  dancing  and 
gesture.  Not  so  long  ago  both  sexes  of  man  practised 
such  display,  but  in  earliest  times  only  the  male,  the 
woman  being  allowed  to  sport  a  discarded  rag  or  a  broken 
old  necklace  if  she  were  very  satisfactory  and  submissive 
in  her  general  conduct ! 

I  must  endeavour  very  briefly  to  explain  how  this 
contrast  of  "  instinct "  with  "  thought,  knowledge,  reason, 
and  will "  must  (as  it  seems  to  me)  be  regarded.  There 
are  three  great  steps  in  the  gradual  evolution  of  the 
mind.  The  first  is  the  slow  formation  (by  variation  and 
survival  of  the  fittest)  of  transmissible,  and  therefore 
inherited,  mechanisms  of  the  mind,  which  are  of  various 
degrees  of  complexity,  and  characterize  different  species 
and  kinds  of  animals.  These  mechanisms  act  auto- 
matically like  those  of  a  "  penny-in-the-slot  machine," 
and  are  just  as  regularly  present,  and  as  much 
alike  in  all  individuals  of  a  species,  as  are  the  other 
inherited  structures,  such  as  bones,  flesh,  viscera,  the 
skin  and  its  coloured  clothing  of  decorative  feathers 
or  hair. 


212  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Later,  and  added  to  these  inherited  mechanisms 
— often  interfering  with  them  and  putting  an  end  to 
them — are  the  mechanisms  of  the  second  step.  These 
are  mechanisms  arising  from  individual  experience ; 
they  depend  on  memory — the  inscription  on  "  the  tablets 
of  the  mind,"  of  the  experience  that  this  follows  that. 
They  control  movement  and  action,  usurping  the  privi- 
lege of  the  previously  omnipotent  inherited  mechanisms 
or  instincts.  This  second  step  in  the  development  of 
mind  requires  an  excessive  quantity  of  brain-cells.  It 
only  makes  its  appearance  at  all  in  animals  with  large 
brains,  and  reaches  a  far  greater  development  in  man 
even  than  in  the  apes,  his  brain  being  from  twice  to 
three  times  the  size  of  that  of  the  largest  living  ape. 
This  use  of  memory  and  individual  experience — instead 
of  an  inherited  mechanism,  which  is  the  same  in  every 
member  of  the  species — is  obviously  a  great  advantage 
in  the  struggle  for  existence.  There  are  traces  of  it  in 
some  of  the  cuttlefish  and  insects,  but  even  in  the  fishes 
and  reptiles  among  living  vertebrates  it  is  of  small 
account,  and  the  small  brain  carries  on  its  work  by  good, 
sound,  inherited  mechanisms  or  instincts,  but  learns 
nothing,  comprehends  nothing !  In  the  birds  we  see 
a  little — a  very  little — more  capacity  for  "  learning  by 
individual  experience,"  and  it  is  only  in  the  larger  and 
later  mammals  that  educability,  or  the  power  of  learning 
by  individual  experience,  becomes  of  serious  importance. 
All  the  larger  living  mammals — horse,  cattle,  sheep, 
rhinoceros,  tapir — have  acquired  an  enormous  increase  in 
the  size  of  their  brains — as  much  as  six  or  eight  times 
the  volume  of  that  of  their  extinct  ancestors  whose  bones 
and  brain  cavities  we  find  fossilized  in  the  Tertiary 
strata.  Man  has  by  far  the  biggest  brain  of  all  these 
animals,  and  has  a  unique  degree  of  educability,  together 
with  the  fewest  instincts  or  in-born  hereditary  mechan- 


COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON       213 

isms  among  animals.  He  has  practically  to  learn  by 
individual  experience — and  therefore  in  the  form  best 
suited  to  his  individual  requirements — a  host  of  most 
important  actions  and  behaviours  which  even  monkeys  as 
well  as  dogs  and  sheep  and  horses  never  have  to  "  learn," 
but  proceed  to  put  in  practice  as  soon  as  they  are  born, 
or,  at  any  rate,  without  any  preliminary  process  of  ex- 
periment and  effort.  Man  is  the  one  highly  "  educable  " 
animal.  In  consequence  of  his  large  brain  and  its 
roomy  memory  he  can  be,  and  is — even  when  a 
"  savage " — educated.  Monkeys  and  dogs  have  only 
small  "  educability  "  as  compared  with  man,  though 
more  than  have  reptiles  or  fishes.  Man's  mind  is, 
therefore,  in  this  essential  feature  different  from  that 
of  animals.  The  modern  mammals  with  brains  as  much 
as  eight  times  the  bulk  of  their  early  Tertiary  ancestors 
have,  it  is  true,  acquired  "  educability  "  and  the  power  of 
storing  individual  experience  as  "  memory,"  but  their 
memory  is  far  less  extensive  than  that  of  man,  and 
though  its  guidance  is  of  great  value  to  them  it  acts 
entirely,  or  nearly  so,  without  consciousness.  No  doubt 
man's  brain  includes  some  hereditary  mechanisms,  but  in 
the  main  it  distinctively  consists  of  nerve-mechanisms, 
formed  by  his  own  individual  education,  acting  on  re- 
ceptive and  specially  educable  brain  matter.  And  the 
brain  mechanism  formed  by  education  is  of  greater  life- 
saving  value  than  is  that  of  the  inherited  instincts  which 
meet  general  emergencies,  but  not  those  new  and  special 
to  the  individual. 

The  third  step  in  the  development  of  mind  is  the 
arrival  (for  one  can  call  it  by  no  other  term)  of  that 
condition  which  we  call  "  consciousness  " — the  power  of 
saying  to  oneself  "  I  am  I,"  and  of  looking  on  as  a  detached 
existence  not  only  at  other  existences  but  at  one's  own 


214  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

mental  processes,  feelings,  and  movements.  With  it  comes 
thought,  knowledge,  reason,  and  will.  We  may  speak 
of  consciousness  as  invading  or  spreading  gradually  over 
the  territory  of  mind.  All  the  three  steps  of  the  growth 
of  mind  which  I  have  distinguished  can  be  seen  following 
one  on  the  other  in  the  growth  of  a  human  child  from 
infancy  to  adolescence.  The  second  step — the  develop- 
ment of  individual  mechanisms  due  to  memory — is  not 
in  most  animals,  and  not  entirely  in  man,  pervaded  by  or 
"within  the  area  of"  consciousness.  Memory  is  at  first 
"  unconscious  memory,"  and  there  still  remains  in  man  a 
capacity  for  forming  "  memory  "  which  never  (or  in  some 
matters  only  exceptionally)  becomes  illuminated  by 
consciousness.  Apparently  the  inherited  mechanisms 
which  we  call  "  instincts  "  are  never  within  the  reach  of 
consciousness,  though,  of  course,  the  actions  determined 
by  them  are.  It  is  a  difficult  matter  to  decide  how  far 
the  memory  of  apes,  dogs,  and  such  animals  nearest  to 
man  is  conscious  memory.  Probably  very  little.  But 
it  is  only  when  memory,  as  well  as  the  impression  of  the 
moment,  is  pervaded  by  consciousness  that  reflection, 
and  reason  and  action  dependent  on  reason,  are  possible.1 

Hence  it  is  that  man  in  all  the  procedure  of  courtship 
stands  apart  from  animals.  Even  the  Australian  has 
not  only  an  educable  brain,  but  a  more  or  less  conscious 
memory.  He  seems  to  be  permanently,  in  this  respect, 
in  the  condition  of  an  ordinary  European  child  of  about 
five  years  old.  Gradually  in  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment, both  of  increased  educability  and  of  more  and  more 
efficient  and  serviceable  education,  man  has  first  aban- 
doned by  slow  degrees  his  violent  ancestral  methods  of 
procuring  a  mate,  and  has,  as  the  result  of  observation, 

1  I   have  alluded   to  this   subject  again,  necessarily  with   some 
repetition  in  the  chapter  on  "The  Mind  of  Apes  and  of  Man,"  p.  262. 


COURTSHIP,  INSTINCT  AND  REASON       215 

reflection,  and  conscious  reasoning,  taken  to  courtship  by 
persuasion  and  fascination,  similar  to  that  of  the  birds 
and  other  remote  creatures,  retaining,  however,  for  a  long 
period  his  habit  of  fighting  with  other  males  to  establish 
his  claim  to  the  woman  of  his  choice.  And  at  last,  in 
his  later  development  in  civilized  lands,  he  has  abandoned 
the  more  obvious  arts  of  courtship  and  has  taken  to 
decorating  his  womankind  instead  of  himself.  He  has 
made  woman  take  over  the  habit  of  courtship  by  the 
fascination  of  colour  and  pose  whilst  he  looks  on  in 
sombre  clothing  with  thoughtful  reserve.  He  does  not 
any  longer  even  rely  on  his  strength  or  skill  in  fighting 
in  order  to  scatter  his  rivals,  but  makes  appeal  by  word 
to  the  sympathy  of  the  desired  mate  and  trusts  to  the 
fascination  which  the  power,  given  either  by  superior  in- 
tellectual quality  or  by  accumulated  wealth,  have  for  her. 


CHAPTER    XXIV 
DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

IN  early  September,  golf  links  and  other  such  grass- 
lands swarm  with  a  large  gnat-like  fly  of  reddish- 
brown  body,  feeble  flight,  and  long,  straggling  legs. 
These  flies  are  generally  called  "  Daddy-Long-Legs,"  or, 
by  the  more  learned,  "  Crane-flies."  I  find  that  they 
are  sometimes  confused  with  another  fly  of  about  the 
same  size  with  bright  reddish-brown  body,  which  is  very 
much  less  abundant  and  occasionally  flutters  around  the 
lamps  and  candles  in  a  country  house  when  the  windows 
are  open  in  the  evening.  This  second  kind  of  fly  has  a 
formidable  black-coloured  sting,  which  it  shoots  out  from 
the  end  of  its  tail  when  handled  ;  it  has  also  two  pairs 
of  wings,  and  is  an  Ichneumon-fly,  one  of  the  Hymenop- 
tera,  the  order  of  insects  to  which  bees,  wasps,  ants,  and 
gall-flies  belong.  Our  daddy-long-legs  has  no  sting, 
though  the  female  has  a  sharply  pointed  tail.  It  has 
only  one  pair  of  wings,  and  belongs  to  the  order  Diptera, 
or  tway-wing  flies,  in  which  our  house-fly  and  bluebottle, 
horse-flies,  tsetse-flies,  gnats,  and  midges  of  vast  number 
and  variety  are  classified.  They  none  of  them  have  tail 
"  stings,"  though  the  tail  may  be  elongated  and  pointed. 

Though  the  two-winged  flies  or  Diptera  have  only 
two   wings  well  grown  and    of  full  size,  the  second  or 

hinder  pair  of  wings  which  other  insects  possess  of  full 

216 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


217 


size,  are  present  in  them  in  a  very  much  dwindled  condi- 
tion.    Since  most  of  our  common  flies  are  very  small  it  is 


A,  The   Crane-fly  (Daddy-Long-Legs),  Tip'ula  oleracea.     e,  the 

left  eye ;  h,  one  of  the  balancers  or  "  halteres,"  which  are 
the  modified  second  pair  of  wings  ;  th,  the  thorax.  Natural 
size. 

B,  The  "Leather-jacket,"  the  grub  of  the  crane-fly,     a,  head  ; 

6,  tail.     Natural  size. 

C,  The  Click-beetle  or  Skip-jack,    Elater   obscurus.     The  line 

beside  it  shows  its  natural  size. 

D,  The  true  Wire-worm  or  grub  of  the  click-beetles.     Enlarged 

to  four  times  the  natural  length,     a,  tail  ;  t>,  head. 

difficult  to  see  this  dwindled  pair  of  wings,  which  lie  close 
behind  the  first  or  large  pair,  and  are  called  the  "balan- 
cers," or  "halteres."  The  daddy-long-legs  (Fig.  22,  A) 


21 8  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

is  big  as  flies  go,  and  with  a  pocket  lens,  or  even  with- 
out one,  you  can  readily  see  the  dwindled  second  pair 
of  wings  standing  out  clearly  from  the  body  behind  the 
attachment  of  the  first  pair.  These  "  balancers  "  are  of 
the  shape  of  a  tennis  racket,  or  a  ball-headed  club. 
They  serve  no  longer  as  organs  of  flight,  but  as  auditory 
organs.  A  minute  parasitic  insect  (Stylops)  which  lives 
in  bees  has  only  one  pair  of  wings,  but  in  this  case  it  is 
the  hinder  pair  which  are  developed,  the  front  pair  being 
shrunk  to  rudimentary  lappets. 

The  daddy-long-legs,  or  common  crane-fly,  is  a  little 
less  than  an  inch  long  and  a  little  more  than  an  inch 
across  the  spread  wings.  Its  power  of  flight  is  not  well 
developed,  and  its  six  long  legs  are  moved  so  slowly  and 
awkwardly  that  one  would  say  that  its  powers  of  walking 
and  running  are  also  feeble.  Their  strange  movements 
have  led  some  unknown  poet  to  imagine  the  "  daddy  " 
saying : 

"My  six  long  legs,  all  here  and  there, 
Oppress  my  bosom  with  despair." 

In  reality  these  queerly-moving  long  legs  serve  the 
insect  effectively  in  making  its  way  among  the  closely- 
set  blades  of  grass  about  which  it  crawls.  The  legs 
easily  come  off,  and  the  loss  of  one  does  not  appear  to 
be  a  serious  matter.  Probably  the  easy  detachment  of 
a  leg  enables  the  fly  to  escape  if  one  of  them  gets  caught 
and  nipped  in  overlapping  blades  of  grass — though  such 
a  throwing  away  of  a  limb  seems  a  rather  reckless 
proceeding,  especially  since  the  insect  has  no  power  of 
"  regeneration  "  as  it  is  called,  that  is,  of  growing  a  new 
leg  to  replace  the  lost  one.  There  are  several  well- 
known  instances  of  animals  which  have  the  power  of 
breaking  off  a  leg  or  the  tail  if  seized  by  an  enemy  or 


D  ADD  Y-LONG-LEGS  2 1 9 

otherwise  gripped.  The  smaller  lizards  and  the  legless 
lizard,  called  the  "  slow-worm,"  have  this  power  in  regard 
to  the  tail,  but  they  proceed  to  grow  a  new  tail  after 
they  have  escaped.  Some  marine  worms  have  a  similar 
faculty,  and  some  star-fishes  (hence  called  "  brittle-stars  ") 
have  a  most  annoying  habit  of  throwing  off  their  "  arms  " 
when  caught.  The  central  disk  of  these  star-fish,  with 
all  its  arms  shed,  can  "  regenerate "  the  lost  parts. 
Crabs,  too,  of  various  kinds  have  the  habit,  when  caught 
by  the  leg,  of  breaking  it  off,  and  they  may  often  be 
found  with  a  completely-formed  little  leg,  which  has  been 
"  regenerated "  or  grown  afresh,  and  will  in  due  time 
attain  full  size.  The  beautiful  hairy  skin  of  the  tail  of 
the  little  dormouse  also  will  come  off  when  the  animal  is 
caught  by  it,  leaving  the  bony  blood-stained  skeleton  of 
the  tail  exposed  to  dry  and  wither  up.  There  is  no 
re-growth  in  this  case.  I  was  horrified  when  I  was  a 
boy  to  see  six  dormice  reduced  to  this  condition  in  the 
bird  and  beast  shop  on  the  staircase  of  the  old  Pantheon 
bazaar.  They  had  escaped  from  their  cage  whilst  I  was 
looking  on,  and  the  shopman  endeavoured  to  catch  them, 
with  this  distressing  result. 

So  we  find  that  the  loss  of  its  legs  by  the 
"  daddy "  is  a  means  of  safety  to  it,  and  is  a  similar 
provision  to  that  seen  in  some  other  animals.  It  seems 
improbable  that  the  "  old  father  long-legs  "  who  "  would 
not  say  his  prayers  "  (according  to  an  ancient  nursery 
rhyme),  is  a  myth  referring  to  a  daddy-long-legs  of  the 
insect  kind,  since  the  recommendation  to  "  take  him  by 
his  left  leg  and  throw  him  downstairs  "  would  have  been 
futile ;  his  left  leg  would  have  come  off  as  soon  as  seized, 
and  have  greatly  embarrassed  the  individual  intending 
to  throw  him  downstairs !  Another  kind  of  insect-like 
animal,  which  occurs  commonly  in  cobwebby  outhouses, 


220  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

and  has  a  globular  body  and  eight  very  long  legs — easily 
broken  off — is  also  commonly  called  a  "  daddy-long- 
legs." It  has  no  wings,  and  is  allied  to  the  spiders, 
though  it  is  not  a  true  spider — having  a  minute  pair  of 
nippers  near  its  mouth,  instead  of  the  pair  of  stabbing 
claws  which  spiders  have.  It  is  frequently  called  a 
"  harvester,"  a  name  loosely  applied  to  other  small 
creatures.  It  is  known  to  zoologists  as  Opilio. 

Our  crane-flies,  or  daddy-long-legs,  when  they  swarm 
about  the  grass  are  intent  on  two  objects.  They  do  not 
require  food  ;  they  have  had  enough  when  they  were 
grubs  concealed  in  the  soil.  They  are  now  busy,  first, 
in  pairing,  so  that  the  females'  eggs  may  be  fertilized  ; 
and,  secondly,  the  females  are  about  to  choose  a  likely 
piece  of  ground  in  which  to  bore  with  their  pointed  tails 
and  lay  their  eggs.  They  prefer  rather  damp  spots, 
shaded  from  the  fierce  drying  heat  of  the  sun,  for  this 
purpose.  When  laying  her  eggs,  the  female  balances 
herself  with  her  legs  in  an  upright  position,  and,  pushing 
the  sharp  tail  into  the  earth,  moves  round  by  the  aid  of 
her  legs,  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  so  as  to  bore  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  or  so  into  the  loose  soil.  Then  she 
lays  two  or  three  eggs,  and,  coming  down  from  her 
upright  pose,  moves  on  through  the  blades  of  grass  for 
3  or  4  inches,  and  again  takes  an  upright  attitude, 
and  repeats  the  boring  and  egglaying.  The  eggs  are 
very  small,  black,  shining  grains,  of  which  as  many  as 
300  are  found  in  the  body  of  one  ripe  female.  The 
male  crane-fly  has  a  broad,  somewhat  expanded  end  to 
its  body,  by  which  it  is  easily  distinguished  from  the 
female. 

From  the  eggs  minute  maggots  or  grubs  hatch  and 
feed  upon  animal  and  vegetable  refuse  in  the  soil,  but  as 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS  22 1 

they  increase  in  size  they  burrow  an  inch  or  so  into  the 
ground  among  the  grass  roots.  There  are  two  broods, 
one  in  spring  and  a  more  abundant  one  in  August  and 
September.  The  grubs  have  no  legs.  Insect  grubs  are 
often  legless,  as,  for  instance,  the  maggots  or  "  gentles  " 
of  bluebottle-flies.  Or  they  are  provided  with  short 
legs,  as,  for  instance,  are  the  "  caterpillars  "  or  grubs  of 
moths  and  butterflies.  The  grubs  of  the  crane-fly 
(Fig.  22,  B)  show  eleven  rings  or  segments  to  the  body, 
and  have  a  tough  grey  or  brownish  skin,  which  is  so  firm 
as  to  give  them  the  name  of  "  leather-jackets."  They 
have  a  head  provided  with  a  pair  of  short,  strong 
mandibles  or  jaws,  and  a  very  short  pair  of  feelers 
(antennae).  These  grubs  grow  to  be  an  inch  and  a  half 
long,  and  are  two-thirds  the  thickness  of  a  common 
quill  pen.  They  gnaw  with  their  hard  jaws  the  young 
shoots  and  roots  of  grass,  and  do  an  enormous  amount 
of  damage  to  grassland.  They  are  rarely  seen  except 
when  a  sod  is  lifted,  but  in  late  spring  and  summer, 
when  the  grub  changes  to  a  motionless  pupa  or  chrysalis, 
they  may  be  seen  protruding  for  about  a  third  of  their 
length  from  the  surface  amidst  the  grass  tufts.  Birds  eat 
them  and  rooks  dig  with  their  beaks  into  the  sod  in  order 
to  pull  them  out,  leaving  a  number  of  small  pits  (on  the 
golf  links)  where  they  have  been  at  work.  The  proper 
name  of  these  injurious  grubs  is  "  leather-jackets." 
They  are  often  confused  with  another  grass-and-wheat 
pest,  the  "  wire-worm,"  and  are  in  consequence  sometimes 
called  "  false  wire-worms."  The  "  wire-worm  "  is  the 
grub  of  a  beetle  (Fig.  22,  C  and  D),  and  is  very  different 
in  appearance  and  history  from  the  "  leather-jacket," 
though  both  of  them  do  great  damage  to  grass  and  to 
grain  crops. 

The  common  crane-fly,  or  daddy-long-legs,  is  called 


222  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Tipula  oleracea  by  entomologists,  and  is  abundant  in 
Europe  as  well  as  in  these  islands.  There  are  other 
"  species "  of  the  genus  Tipula  common  in  England, 
namely,  a  smaller  kind  with  spotted  wings,  Tipula 
maculosa,  or  the  spotted  crane-fly,  and  a  large  kind 
called  Tipula  paludosa,  which  frequents  marsh  land. 
There  are  many  species  of  Tipula  in  other  parts  of 
the  world,  and  there  are  closely  allied  kinds  which  are 
ranked  in  distinct  genera,  differing  a  little  in  certain 
features  from  the  genus  Tipula.  These  all  form,  taken 
together,  the  family  Tipulidae.  They,  together  with 
the  various  kinds  of  gnats  or  "  mosquitoes,"  the  midges 
and  fungus-flies,  form  one  of  two  divisions  into  which 
the  two-winged  insects  or  Diptera  are  divided,  namely, 
those  with  long,  thread-like  feelers  or  antennae  (Nemo- 
cera — thread  horned),  the  other  division  being  those 
with  quite  short  antennae  (Brachycera — short  horned). 
The  latter  group  comprises  the  flies  with  thick, 
heavy  bodies,  such  as  the  common  house-fly,  the 
bluebottle,  the  horse-flies,  bott-flies,  and  tsetse-flies. 
The  long-horned  group  have  usually  long,  narrow  bodies 
and  long,  narrow  wings,  which  do  not  at  once  lie  flat  on 
the  back  when  the  fly  alights  (as  do  those  of  the  short- 
horned  group,  as,  for  instance,  those  of  the  common 
house-fly).  The  females  of  the  common  gnat  (Culex 
pipiens)  and  numerous  allied  species  are  bloodsuckers. 
The  various  midges  are  mostly  harmless,  whilst  others 
have  females  which  suck  blood.  The  crane-flies  do  not 
bite.  The  real  feeding  of  all  these  gnat-like  flies  is  done 
when  they  are  in  the  grub  phase  of  their  life,  but  the 
females  of  some  gnats  and  midges  appear  to  have  the 
need  of  extra  nourishment  when  in  the  fully-formed  free- 
flying  state,  in  order  to  ripen  their  large  bulk  of  eggs. 
Hence,  in  some  cases,  they  (but  not  the  males)  suck  the 
juices  of  plants  and  the  blood  of  animals. 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS  223 

The  larval  or  grub  phase  of  life  is  passed  by  many  of 
these  flies  in  the  earth  amidst  putrefying  vegetable  and 
animal  refuse  on  which  they  feed,  as  in  the  instance  of 
the  daddy-long-legs ;  but  here  and  there  we  find  species 
which  penetrate  into  the  soft  parts  of  plants  and  animals. 
A  whole  group  of  many  species  burrow  into  mushrooms 
and  other  fungi  when  they  are  grubs ;  others,  again,  live 
in  water  when  they  are  grubs  or  "  larvae,"  and  have  a 
very  active  aquatic  life,  rising  to  the  surface  to  breathe 
air  and  searching  for  food  in  the  water  with  their  feelers 
and  eyes,  and  seizing  it  with  their  powerful  jaws.  The 
mother  fly  in  these  cases  lays  her  eggs  in  a  group  on  the 
surface  of  the  water  or  embedded  in  a  jelly  which  she 
secretes  and  attaches  to  the  leaves  of  water  plants. 
Some  of  the  short-horned  flies  (bott-flies  and  others)  lay 
their  eggs  in  the  living  flesh  of  warm-blooded  animals, 
including  man,  and  the  maggots  hatch  there  and  feed  on 
the  juices  of  the  "  flyblown  "  animal.  Cases  are  not  rare 
of  children  being  thus  infested. 

The  black  flies  which  fly  in  swarms  "  high  "  or  "  low  " 
in  the  country  lanes  on  summer  evenings  are  not  true 
biting  gnats,  but  a  large  kind  of  midges  known  as 
Chironomus  or  Harlequin  flies.  Their  eggs  are  laid 
in  the  water  of  ponds,  and  the  larvae  on  hatching  bury 
themselves  in  the  rich  black  mud  and  feed  there.  The 
larvae  are  of  a  splendid  blood-red  colour,  and  are  often 
called  "  blood-worms."  They  owe  their  colour  to  the 
presence  in  their  blood  of  the  same  red  oxygen-seizing 
crystallizable  substance,  haemoglobin,  which  gives  its 
red  colour  to  the  blood  of  man  and  other  vertebrates. 
Its  presence  is  remarkable,  because  in  all  other  insects 
the  blood  is  colourless  or  of  pale  blue  or  green  tint. 
It  seems  that  this  haemoglobin  renders  service  to  the 
larvae  of  the  big  midges  as  it  does  to  some  other 


224  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

creatures  which  live  in  impure  water,  where  free  oxygen 
is  very  small  in  quantity,  namely,  it  enables  them  to 
absorb  and  hold  by  loose  chemical  combination  the 
small  quantity  of  oxygen  available.  The  minute  midges 
called  "Hessian  fly"and"Cecidomyia" — injurious  to  cereal 
crops — should  be  mentioned  here  as  among  the  allies  of 
crane-flies,  as  also  the  blood-sucking  midges,  Ceratopogon, 
and  the  minute  blood-sucking  sand-flies  or  Buffalo-flies, 
called  "  Simulium."  Species  of  Ceratopogon,  so  minute  as 
to  be  barely  visible,  cause  terrible  annoyance  by  their  bites 
to  the  salmon-fisher  in  Scotland,  where  they  often  swarm 
in  countless  numbers.  The  Buffalo-flies  attack  man,  but 
in  some  districts  of  North  America  alight  in  thousands 
on  cattle,  and  cause  death  in  a  few  hours.  A  harmless 
long-horned  fly  is  "  the  plumed  fly,"  Corethra,  the  large 
aquatic  larva  of  which  is  glass-like  and  quite  trans- 
parent, and  offers  splendid  facilities  for  microscopic 
research.  I  used  to  take  it  every  year  in  a  pond  near 
Hampstead  Heath. 

The  leather-jackets,  or  grubs  of  the  common  crane- 
fly  (Fig.  22,  B),  sometimes  destroy  hundreds  of  acres — 
even  whole  districts — of  grassland  in  England  and 
France  by  gnawing  the  young  subterranean  roots  and 
shoots  of  the  grass.  They  also  destroy  young  wheat 
crops.  The  leather-jacket  is  regarded  by  agriculturists 
as  an  intractable  pest,  since  it  gets  too  deep  into  the 
turf  to  be  destroyed  by  chemical  poisons.  Its  thick 
skin  also  makes  it  very  resistant  to  such  treatment. 
When  immersed  in  brine  for  twenty-four  hours  the 
grubs  are  not  killed ;  prolonged  immersion  in  water 
is  equally  ineffective ;  they  may  be  frozen  until  they 
are  brittle,  and  will  yet  recover ;  and  when  kept  three 
weeks  without  food,  still  remain  alive.  Birds  are  their 
natural  enemies,  and  rooks  not  only  dig  after  the  grubs, 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS  225 

but  swallow  the  flies  at  the  rate  of  four  a  minute ! 
Ploughing  up  the  land  in  which  the  grubs  abound  is 
recommended  as  a  means  of  destroying  them,  and  also 
the  application  of  gas-lime  to  the  ground.  Rolling  the 
turf  and  pressing  it  down  also  kills  the  grubs,  but  the 
best  chance  of  diminishing  their  ravages  is  found  in 
draining  wet  land  and  in  feeding  up  the  young  grass 
plants  with  "  fertilizers,"  so  that  they  may  grow  rapidly 
and  resist  the  injurious  effect  of  the  leather-jackets' 
nibbling. 

Before  leaving  this  subject  it  will  be  found  interesting 
to  contrast  the  "  leather-jacket "  with  the  true  "  wire- 
worms,"  which  are  the  grubs  of  a  remarkable  kind  of 
beetle  (there  are  half  a  dozen  British  species)  called  the 
click-beetle  (Fig.  22,  C).  They  belong  to  a  great  family 
of  beetles  (Coleoptera),  known  as  the  Elaterids  or  Elaters, 
of  which  7000  species  are  known,  sixty  being  British. 
Some  of  the  most  brilliant  light-giving  or  phosphorescent 
insects  (not,  however,  the  common  glow-worms)  belong 
here.  The  click-beetles  are  so  called  because  when  one 
is  laid  on  its  back  it  regains  its  proper  pose,  with  the 
legs  beneath  it,  by  a  spring  or  "  skip,"  accompanied  by  a 
sharp  click.  The  grubs  of  the  click-beetles,  known  as 
"  wire-worms  "  (the  name  is  also  applied  to  centipedes), 
are  more  threadlike,  that  is  to  say  narrower,  than  the 
leather-jackets.  They  are  not  legless  "  maggots,"  but 
have  three  pairs  of  small  legs  (Fig.  22,  D).  They  destroy 
corn  and  grass,  and  do  not  change  into  the  adult  con- 
dition in  a  few  months,  as  do  the  leather-jackets,  but 
remain  for  three,  and  in  some  cases  five,  years  in  the 
ground  feeding  on  the  roots  of  the  corn  and  grass  plants, 
doing  much  destruction  before  they  finally  change  into 
beetles. 


CHAPTER    XXV 
THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE 

T  N  order  to  understand  and  interpret  correctly  the 
JL  operation  of  natural  selection  in  producing  new 
species  and  maintaining  them,  by  "  the  preservation 
of  favoured  races  in  the  struggle  for  life "  (to  use 
Darwin's  words),  we  must  take  a  wide  and,  at  the 
same  time,  a  minutely  accurate  survey  of  the  living 
world.  We  must  seek  out  the  evidences  of  this  opera- 
tion and  use  the  imagination  in  forming  conceptions  as 
to  the  varied  steps  of  the  process  and  the  results  which 
are  likely  to  ensue  from  it  at  different  stages  and  in 
different  conditions.  We  cannot  interpret  the  existing 
structures  and  behaviour  of  living  things  by  the  use  of 
a  simple  formula,  such  as  that  set  up  by  some  writers 
who  have  not  properly  studied  Mr.  Darwin's  works,  and 
declare  that,  according  to  him,  all  structures  and  be- 
haviours which  we  observe  in  living  things  are  perfect 
and  the  finished  result  of  survival  of  the  ideally  fittest 
variations. 

Plants  and  animals  are  so  complex  (as  no  one  has 
shown  more  clearly  than  Darwin),  not  only  in  their 
structure  but  in  the  chemical  and  physical  action  and 
interaction  of  their  living  parts,  that  in  the  course  of 
the  ages  during  which  the  present  species  have  been, 
step  by  step,  fashioned  in  the  endless  vicissitudes  of  a 

236 


THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE     227 

changing  world,  many  of  them  have  retained  structures 
or  chemical  constitutions  which  once  were  useful  but 
now  are  useless,  or  even  positively  injurious.  Even 
injurious  structures  or  behaviours  maybe  retained  and 
inherited  by  a  species  of  plant  or  animal,  if,  on  the 
whole,  the  other  accompanying  modifications  of  structure 
are  valuable — that  is,  of  "  life-saving "  value,  so  that, 
"  on  the  whole,"  the  race  is  favoured  by  selection  in  the 
struggle  for  existence. 

In  species  which  have  but  lately  acquired  dominance 
or  are  brought  by  their  success  into  novel  conditions,  we 
may,  and  do,  find  old  structures  and  behaviours  still  per- 
sisting which  are  injurious,  not  yet,  as  it  were,  "  cleaned 
up "  and  got  rid  of  as  they  would  be  in  the  course  of 
further  long  periods  of  selection.  Such  species  become 
established,  and  may  even  acquire  a  definite  stability, 
because  the  injurious  structures  or  behaviours  which  they 
have  retained  are  of  little  or  no  account  as  compared 
with  the  other  advantageous  characters  which  the  species 
have  developed.  The  term  "  disharmonies  "  is  applied  to 
such  injurious  characters,  consisting  in  a  certain  want  of 
harmony  (in  minor  respects)  between  the  structure  of  an 
organism  and  the  conditions  in  which,  nevertheless,  it 
thrives. 

Such  species,  imperfect  because  of  their  "  dishar- 
monies," are  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  Nature 
herself,  in  matters  relating  to  living  things,  is  not  averse 
to  compromise.  Nature  sets  the  example  of  toleration. 
Toleration  may  be  defended  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
the  biological  method.  Nature,  though  stern  and  in- 
exorable as  to  essentials,  yet  accepts  the  faults  and 
defects  of  some  of  her  children  because  of  the  virtues 
and  excellences  which  accompany  them.  The  most 


228  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

highly  endowed  and  successful  forms  on  account  of  their 
dominance  and  power  of  spreading  into  new  conditions, 
are  even  more  likely  than  less  highly  developed  kinds 
to  retain  concealed  defects — disharmonies  which  do  not 
lead  to  the  destruction  of  the  species,  but  occasionally 
cause  strange  embarrassment  to  it  until  they  are,  possibly 
in  the  long  process  of  ages,  got  rid  of  by  the  slow  opera- 
tion of  selection  and  survival  of  those  individuals  in 
which  the  injurious  character  varies  in  the  direction  of 
diminution  and  ultimate  disappearance. 

In  man  (owing,  apparently,  to  the  rapid  rate  at  which 
he  has  been  carried  along  towards  dominance  over  the 
whole  face  of  the  globe  by  the  development  of  his  in- 
telligence) the  bodily  structure  has  failed  to  keep  pace 
with  and  to  become  perfected,  "  trimmed  up,"  and  com- 
pletely adapted  to,  the  newly-acquired  habits  which  his 
increasing  intelligence  has  forced  on  him.  His  "  wisdom 
teeth  "  are  "  disharmonies."  They  are  now  useless  and 
dwindled,  weak  spots  open  to  the  attacks  of  disease — 
since  they  are  no  longer  needed  for  grinding  coarse 
vegetable  food,  and  are  consequently  no  longer  kept  (by 
the  speedy  death  of  those  individuals  in  whom  they  are 
small)  at  the  full  original  size  and  efficiency  seen  in  the 
apes.  His  large  intestine  is  a  "  disharmony "  not  yet 
got  rid  of  by  natural  selection,  although  no  longer  useful, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  seat  of  poisonous  putrefaction 
and  absorption  of  such  poisons.  His  tail — a  few  small 
vertebrae  beneath  the  skin — is  absolutely  useless,  and 
occasionally  the  seat  of  dangerous  injury  or  disease. 
Tails  very  generally  are  liable  to  become  useless  in  the 
descendants  of  animals  in  which  they  were  invaluable  as 
"  fly-brushes  "  (cattle,  horses,  etc.),  as  prehensible  organs 
(American  monkeys),  as  concealing  cloaks  (South 
American  ant-eater),  as  aids  to  swimming  or  flying,  or 


THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE  229 

as  ornamental  glories  (the  big-cats  and  others).  The 
stumpy  tail  of  the  lynx,  of  some  monkeys,  and  some 
lizards  and  fishes  tells  of  a  history  in  which  the  full- 
sized  tail  became  a  "  disharmony  " — a  positive  nuisance 
— and  has  been  reduced,  even  if  not  abolished,  by 
natural  selection  of  short-tailed  or  tail-less  varieties. 

We  have  to  be  careful  in  asserting  that  any  structure 
or  behaviour  in  an  organism  is  certainly  a  "  disharmony," 
for  it  is  very  difficult  to  be  quite  sure  as  to  the  complete 
details  of  the  life  of  a  wild  creature,  and  so  to  be  able 
to  form  a  conclusion  rather  than  to  suggest  a  possibility 
— as  to  the  part  played  by  an  apparently  injurious 
structure  or  habit  in  the  economy  of  that  creature. 

One  of  the  most  striking  instances  of  a  habit  or 
behaviour  which  persists  and  dominates  the  life  of  a 
wild  animal  to  its  own  injury  and  destruction  is  that 
shown  by  many  moths  and  other  insects,  which  are 
attracted  at  night  by  a  flame  (a  lamp  or  an  open  fire), 
and  fly  into  it  even  when  burnt  by  it,  again  and  again 
until  they  are  killed.  A  burnt  child  dreads  the  fire ; 
but  a  burnt  moth  or  a  singed  ichneumon  fly  seems  to 
enjoy  being  burnt,  and  becomes  more  and  more  excited 
by  its  dashes  into  the  flame  until  it  finally  drops  with 
shrivelled  wings  to  the  ground.  My  brother  told  me  some 
years  ago  of  the  verandah  of  his  house  in  Java  in  which 
an  open  lamp  was  lit  every  night.  Regularly  two  sets 
of  animals,  driven  and  guided  by  the  action  of  the  light 
on  their  nervous  mechanism,  arrived  on  the  scene. 
Swarms  of  moths  and  flies  dashed  in  and  out  of  the 
flame  and  fell,  maimed  by  the  heat,  to  the  ground. 
There  a  strange  group  had  already  assembled.  Gigantic 
toads  and  wall  lizards  crept  from  their  holes  in  the 
masonry  and  woodwork,  and  awaited  the  shower  of 


230  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

injured  insects,  which  they  snapped  up  in  eager  rivalry 
as  the  infatuated  flame-seekers  dropped,  hour  after  hour, 
to  the  floor.  The  instinct,  the  nervous  mechanism,  which 
brought  the  greedy  reptiles  to  the  spot  was  a  "  harmony," 
a  valuable  guide  to  nutrition ;  whilst  the  flame-seeker's 
impulse  is  assuredly  a  "  disharmony  " — a  defect  in  ad- 
justment— leading  to  death. 

It  is  interesting  to  inquire  into  the  probable  origin 
of  this  fatal  desire  for  close  contact  with  a  source  of 
light,  a  desire  so  strong  as  to  be  entirely  unchecked  by 
the  deadly  heat  accompanying  the  light.  The  May- 
flies or  Ephemerids  are  delicate  little  creatures,  having 
four  net-veined  wings  rarely  more  than  three-quarters  of 
an  inch  across,  with  two  or  three  long  filaments  hanging 
from  the  tail.  Three  hundred  species  are  known  from 
all  parts  of  the  world,  of  which  forty  occur  in  the 
British  Islands.  They  live  as  wingless,  six-legged  larvae 
in  the  water  for  a  couple  of  years,  feeding  voraciously. 
Then  one  summer's  evening  they  very  rapidly  escape 
from  their  larval  skin  and  fly  over  the  water  in  countless 
swarms.  But  only  for  a  few  hours.  The  eggs  of  the 
females  are  fertilized,  and  they  all,  both  males  and 
females,  drop  dead  or  dying  into  the  water,  where  they 
are  greedily  devoured  by  fishes.  The  males  are  far 
more  numerous  than  the  females ;  in  some  species  as 
many  as  6000  males  to  one  female  have  been  counted. 
They  are  attracted  to  an  extraordinary  degree  by 
lights  (flames  or  electric  lamps)  set  up  for  nocturnal 
illumination  by  civilized  man,  and  in  some  districts  they 
are  collected  by  fishermen  in  this  way  for  use  as  food 
for  fish,  or  were  so  in  Holland  in  the  eighteenth  century 
according  to  Swammerdam's  statement  in  his  "  Biblia 
Naturae."  Why  do  they  thus  seek  artificial  lights  ?  There 
is  some  indication  of  an  explanation  in  the  fact  that  two 


THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE     231 

tropical  species  of  May-flies  are  known  which,  like  the 
glow-worms  and  fire-flies,  produce  light  in  their  bodies. 
The  May-flies,  especially  the  males,  have  unusually  large 
and  prominent  eyes,  as  is  the  case  with  phosphorescent  fishes 
and  some  other  light-producing  animals,  and  it  appears 
probable  that  in  the  now  rare  instances  of  self-luminous 
May-flies,  the  sexes  are  attracted  to  one  another  by  the 
light  they  produce,  as  is  the  case  in  other  luminous 
insects.  It  seems  probable  that  the  ancestral  May-flies, 
of  which  many  remarkable  kinds  have  been  discovered 
in  the  fossilized  condition  in  strata  as  far  back  in  time 
as  those  of  the  coal-measures,  were  all  self-luminous, 
and  acquired  an  overpowering  instinct  of  seeking  the 
light  given  out  by  other  individuals  as  a  necessary  step 
towards  sexual  congress.  In  the  course  of  ages  other 
senses  (probably  smell  and  touch)  have  been  called  in 
to  bring  the  fluttering  insects  into  association.  The 
power  of  producing  light,  being  no  longer  needed,  has 
disappeared  from  all  but  two  rare  species.  But  the 
urgent  erotic  instinct,  the  nervous  mechanism,  which 
drove  the  ancient  May-flies  towards  the  dancing  lights 
of  other  May-flies,  has  remained  unaltered  in  all  the 
living  species  of  the  group.  It  is  a  "  disharmony " 
which  has  not  been  of  sufficient  destructive  importance 
to  be  "  cleared  away  "  or  suppressed  by  natural  selection. 
In  pre-human  times,  nocturnal  fires  and  lights  were  too 
uncommon  to  cause  much  disaster  to  the  May-flies. 
But  now  that  mankind  sets  up  everywhere  his  nocturnal 
flames  and  electric  lamps,  the  previously  unimportant 
useless  survival  of  an  overpowering  impulse  to  rush  to 
nocturnal  lights,  reveals  itself  as  a  serious  and  death- 
dealing  "  disharmony."  We  must  suppose,  on  this  theory, 
that  the  other  insects,  such  as  moths  and  certain  flies 
(by  no  means  all  insects),  which  also  madly  fly  into 
nocturnal  lights  to  their  own  destruction,  have  'had 


232  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

luminous  ancestors  and  a  similar  early  history.  This 
is  a  legitimate  supposition,  since  there  are  several  very 
distinct  kinds  of  insects  known  at  the  present  day  which 
are  luminous  at  night,  although  no  existing  moths  or 
butterflies  are  known  to  be  so. 

A  fact  bearing  on  the  explanation  of  the  insects' 
perilous  rush  to  flame  is  that  birds  when  migrating  are 
attracted  by  the  great  brilliant  lamps  of  lighthouses,  and, 
flying  towards  them,  strike  against  their  glass  coverings, 
and  are  killed  in  considerable  numbers.  In  that  case, 
it  may  be  that  the  flying  towards  the  sun  has  become 
instinctive,  and  that  the  bright  light  of  the  lighthouse 
acts  upon  a  certain  number  of  birds  (perhaps  the  less 
well-adjusted  individuals)  so  as  to  call  forth  the  same 
response  in  the  direction  of  flight  as  that  exercised  by 
the  sun's  globe.  The  truth  or  error  of  this  suggestion 
should  be  tested  by  an  examination  of  the  species  of 
birds  which  kill  themselves  against  lighthouse  lanterns, 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  season  and  direction  of  their 
migration. 

As  to  luminous  or  phosphorescent  (often  called 
"  luminescent ")  insects  and  other  animals,  there  are  a 
great  many  curious  and  interesting  facts  known.  There 
are  luminescent  bacteria  (common  on  old  meat  bones  and 
dead  fish  and  in  the  sea  generally),  animalcules  of  various 
species,  jelly-fish,  star-fish,  worms,  shell-fish,  and  crus- 
taceans and  true  fishes.  Inhabitants  of  the  great  depths 
of  the  ocean  of  all  kinds  are  usually  luminescent.  The 
light  is  caused  by  the  oxidation  of  a  peculiar  fatty 
substance.  Without  free  oxygen  there  is  no  lumin- 
escence, and  yet  no  heat  is  produced  but  merely  light, 
as  when  a  stick  of  damp  phosphorus  glows.  The  lumin- 
escence of  living  things  (often,  but  undesirably,  called 


THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE     233 

phosphorescence)  is  a  process  differing  greatly  from  that 
called  "  phosphorescence  "  in  minerals  and  crystals,  such 
as  the  emission  of  light  by  a  lump  of  white  loaf-sugar 
when  crushed.  You  may  see  that  kind  of  phosphor- 
escence by  standing  in  front  of  a  looking-glass  in  a  dark 
room  and  crushing  a  lump  of  loaf-sugar  with  the  teeth, 
keeping  the  lips  raised.  It  seems  that  in  many  organisms 
luminescence  occurs  without  any  consequent  use  or  ser- 
vice to  the  organism.  But  in  higher  forms  the  power  of 
emitting  light  has  been  seized  upon  by  natural  selection 
having  become  of  value  in  attracting  the  individuals  of  a 
species  to  one  another,  or  in  attracting  prey,  or  again  in 
scaring  enemies.  The  luminescent  matter  is  concentrated 
in  certain  definite  organs,  and  the  access  to  it  of  oxygen 
and  even  its  formation  are  controlled  by  the  nervous 
system. 

Among  insects  far  better  known  than  the  rare  lumin- 
escent May-flies,  are  the  glow-worms,  a  family  of  beetles 
of  which  several  species  are  known  besides  our  own 
familiar  one,  called  Lampyris  noctiluca.  The  fire-flies 
of  Southern  Europe — Luciola  italica — are  small  beetles 
allied  to  the  glow-worm,  but  both  sexes  fly  and  both  are 
luminous,  whilst  in  the  common  glow-worm  the  female 
is  wingless,  and  the  flying  male,  who  is  guided  to  the 
female  by  her  light  (which  she  can  vary  in  intensity), 
gives  but  a  feeble  light.  The  swarms  of  Italian  fire-flies 
consist  of  as  many  as  a  hundred  males  to  one  female, 
and  the  males  are  far  more  brilliant  than  the  females. 
My  fellow-student  Moseley  showed  some  in  oxygen  gas 
at  the  Royal  Society's  soire'e  many  years  ago.  The 
gas  greatly  increased  their  brilliancy.  Many  valuable 
experiments  in  search  of  an  explanation  of  the  brilliance 
of  the  male  Luciolae  and  their  excess  in  number  could  be 
carried  out  in  North  Italy.  A  peculiar  grub-like  female 


234  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

glow-worm,  three  inches  long,  is  found  in  South  America, 
which  produces  a  red  light  at  each  end  of  the  body  and 
numerous  points  of  green  light  on  each  side  of  it.  It  is 
called  the  "  railway-beetle  "  in  Paraguay. 

Another  family  of  beetles  besides  the  Lampyrids,  or 
glow-worms,  is  celebrated  for  the  brilliant  luminescence 
of  some  of  its  species.  These  are  the  click-beetles,  or 
Elaterids  (see  Fig.  22,  C).  In  South  America  there  are 
upwards  of  a  hundred  species  of  this  group,  showing 
various  degrees  of  luminosity.  The  "  Cucujos "  (Pyro- 
phorus  noctilucus)  of  tropical  America  is  one  of  the  most 
abundant  and  largest.  It  is  as  much  as  an  inch  and  a 
half  long,  and  has  three  "  lamps,"  or  luminous  organs, 
one  on  each  side  of  the  body  and  one  below  the  tail. 
The  light  given  off  is  extremely  beautiful,  and  the  live 
insects  are  used  by  the  women  for  ornament  and  by  the 
country-folk  as  lamps  on  nocturnal  excursions.  Errone- 
ously the  term  "  fire-fly  "  is  applied  to  these  beetles  ;  it 
should  be  reserved  for  the  little  Italian  Luciola,  which 
swarms,  as  countless  thousands  of  dancing  lights,  in  the 
nights  of  early  summer  over  the  marsh  lands  of  North 
Italy.  I  have  seen  it  at  the  end  of  June  as  far  north  as 
Bonn,  on  the  Rhine.  In  Australia  a  small  true  "  fly  "  l — 
that  is  to  say,  a  two-winged  fly'  or  Dipteron  like  our 
gnats,  midges,  and  house-flies — is  known,  the  maggot 
of  which  is  luminous.  And  in  New  Zealand  there  is 
another  of  which  both  the  maggot  and  the  perfect  insect 
are  luminous.  The  grub  is  called  the  New  Zealand 
glow-worm.2 

There  are  grounds  for  believing  that  the  luminescence 
of  some  of  these  insects  serves  them  not  to  attract  one 

1  Known  to  entomologists  as  Ceroplatus  mastersi. 

2  Boletophila  luminosa  of  entomologists. 


THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE  235 

another,  but  to  scare  would-be  predatory  foes,  such  as 
birds,  bats,  and  reptiles.  I  have  heard  a  story  (which 
I  should  like  to  have  confirmed)  that  in  some  part  of 
tropical  Asia  a  certain  kind  of  bird  collects  half  a  dozen 
or  so  of  a  species  of  glow-worm  and  places  them  at  the 
entrance  to  its  nest,  so  as  to  scare  nocturnal  animals 
which  might  attack  its  eggs  or  its  young.  It  is  a  note- 
worthy fact  that  a  point  of  light  in  the  dark  may  act  in 
two  opposite  ways  on  animals  which  see  it — either  it 
attracts  or  it  repels  them.  The  physiologist  calls  this 
positive  and  negative  "  photo-taxis "  (light-guidance). 
And  we  have  the  similarly  positive  and  negative  in- 
fluence of  chemical  taste  and  smell,  called  "  chemo-taxis," 
and  a  similarly  contrasted  positive  and  negative  "  hygro- 
taxis,"  or  directive  influence  of  moisture  upon  the  move- 
ments of  animals  and  plants. 


CHAPTER    XXVI 
FROM  APE  TO  MAN 

THE  recent  discoveries  of  the  actual  bones  of  very  early 
races  of  man  raise  again  a  general  interest  in  the 
inquiry  as  to  what  are  the  actual  differences  of  structure 
between  men  and  apes,  and  what  were  probably  the 
steps  by  which,  as  the  result  of  "  survival  of  the  fittest," 
some  early  man-like  apes  became  ape-like  men.  The 
question  also  arises  as  to  how  long  ago  the  transition 
actually  took  place,  and  whether  it  was  a  very  gradual  or  a 
rapid  one.  We  are  to-day  in  possession  of  some  important 
facts  bearing  upon  this  inquiry  which  were  unknown  to 
Huxley  when  he  wrote  his  ever- memorable  essay  on 
"  Man's  Place  in  Nature,"  and  triumphantly  closed  the 
controversy  between  himself  and  Sir  Richard  Owen. 
That  was  nearly  fifty  years  ago. 

Owen  had  maintained  that  the  structural  difference 
between  man  and  the  highest  apes  was  so  great  that 
it  could  only  be  rightly  expressed  by  placing  man  in  a 
separate  sub-class  of  the  class  "  Mammalia  " — the  hairy 
vertebrate  animals  which  have  warm  blood  and  suckle 
their  young.  He  pointed  chiefly  to  the  large  size  of  the 
brain  in  man,  the  existence  on  each  side  of  its  central 
cavity  of  a  little  internal  swelling  called  the  "  hippocampus 
minor,"  in  the  fanciful  language  of  anatomists,  and  of 

the  overlapping  (within  the  skull)  of  the  cerebellum  by 

236 


FROM  APE  TO  MAN  237 

the  hinder  part  of  the  large  brain-hemispheres,  or  cerebrum 
He  called  the  sub-class  (in  which  he  proposed  to  place 
man  alone)  the  "  archencephala,"  or  that  of  the  highest 
developed  brains  (Greek,  "  archi,"  chief,  and  "  encephalon," 
a  brain),  and  proposed  three  other  sub-classes,  to  contain 
the  other  orders  of  mammals  (the  Gyrencephala,  Lissen- 
cephala,  and  Lyencephala),  grouped  according  to  three 
grades  of  complexity  of  the  brain.  Huxley  denied  the 
justification  of  this  special  grouping,  by  which  man 
was  placed  in  a  separate  and  highest  sub-class  apart 
from  the  apes  and  monkeys.  He  pointed  out  that  every 
bone  and  every  part  recognized  by  the  anatomist  in  the 
higher  apes  is  present  in  man  (though  other  mammals 
present  no  such  identity  with  him  or  them),  and  that 
there  are  only  three  little  muscles  belonging  to  the  hand 
and  the  foot  which  are  present  in  man  and  not  present 
in  the  higher  apes.  He  showed  that  the  term  "  four- 
handed,"  or  "  quadrumanous,"  as  applied  to  the  apes  and 
monkeys,  is  misleading,  inasmuch  as,  though  modified  in 
the  proportions  of  the  digits  and  the  mobility  of  the  great 
toe,  the  foot  of  the  apes  has  the  same  bones  and  muscles 
as  the  foot  of  man,  and  differs  in  structure  from  their 
hand  as  the  foot  of  man  differs  from  his  hand,  whilst 
the  true  hand  of  the  apes  agrees  in  structure  with  the 
hand  of  man. 

Huxley  (supported  by  many  other  anatomists)  also 
showed  conclusively  that  the  little  lobe  in  the  interior  of 
the  brain  called  the  "  hippocampus  minor  "  is  present  in 
the  apes  as  in  man,  and  that  the  posterior  part  of  the 
greater  brain,  or  "cerebrum,"  does  overlap  the  "cerebellum  " 
in  apes  and  many  monkeys  to  an  even  greater  extent  than 
it  does  in  man.  Owen's  statements  on  this  matter 
appear  to  have  been  due  to  his  reliance  on  specimens 
of  apes'  brains  removed  from  the  skull  and  badly  pre- 


238  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

served  in  spirit — in  which  condition  the  parts  in  question 
had  slipped  out  of  their  natural  position.  Owen's  state- 
ments were  thus  fully  demonstrated  to  be  contrary  to 
the  fact,  and  Huxley  declared,  and  conclusively  showed, 
that  so  far  from  being  entitled,  on  anatomical  grounds, 
to  a  separate  sub-class,  man  differs  less  from  the  higher 
apes — the  four  animals  known  as  the  gorilla,  the  chim- 
panzee, the  orang-utan,  and  the  gibbon — than  does 
any  one  of  these  differ  from  the  lower  monkeys.  Huxley 
came,  therefore,  to  the  conclusion  that  man  could  not 
logically  be  dissociated  from  the  apes  and  monkeys  in 
the  way  proposed  by  Owen,  and  that  he  should  be  placed 
with  them  in  one  "  order,"  to  which  the  name  "  Primates  " 
(pronounced  as  three  syllables,  and  having  no  reference 
to  the  clergy  of  the  Anglican  Church)  is  applied,  This 
name  was  given  by  the  great  naturalist  Linnaeus,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  to  the  same  group,  in 
which,  however,  he  erroneously  included  also  the  bats. 

It  was  distinctly  pointed  out  by  Huxley,  and  has 
been  maintained  by  all  those  who  have  since  occupied 
themselves  with  the  matter,  that  there  are  certain  very 
obvious  differences  between  man  and  the  highest  ape,  or 
that  which  comes  nearest  to  him  in  the  largest  number 
of  important  features — the  gorilla.  The  chimpanzee  is 
practically,  for  the  purpose  of  such  a  comparison,  very 
nearly  identical  with  the  gorilla.  Both  are  inhabitants  of 
tropical  Africa,  whilst  the  next  nearest,  the  orang  and 
the  gibbons,  are  inhabitants  of  tropical  Asia.  The  differ- 
ences separating  man  from  these  near  kindred  animals 
are  differences  of  the  size  and  proportion  of  structures 
present  in  them  all.  and  are  not  due  to  the  existence  in 
man  of  actual  parts  or  structures  which  are  present  in 
him  and  not  present  in  these  apes.  Man  has  developed 
from  the  ape,  not  by  the  production  of  any  new  organ 


FROM  APE  TO  MAN  239 

or  part,  but  by  the  definite  modification  of  parts  already 
present  in  the  apes.  Even  that  obscure  internal  worm- 
like  outgrowth  of  the  intestine,  called  the  "  vermiform 
appendix,"  which  has  become  so  unhappily  familiar  to 
the  general  public  of  late  years  on  account  of  its  frequent 
ulceration  and  the  consequent  danger  to  life,  is  present 
in  full  size  in  those  higher  apes  which  I  have  cited  by 
name,  and  is  present  in  them  and  man  alone  amongst  all 
the  varied  members  of  the  class  of  mammals  until  we 
come  to  the  little  Australian  beaver-like  "  wombat,"  which 
has  a  vermiform  appendix  or  narrowed  tube-like  extremity 
to  the  intestinal  sac,  called  the  caecum,  like  that  of  man 
and  the  higher  apes. 

The  changes  of  bodily  form  and  proportions  notice- 
able when  we  compare  man  with  the  gorilla  or  the 
chimpanzee  are  precisely  those  which  fit  in  with  the 
supposition  of  a  gradual  change  of  form  and  habits 
favoured  by  natural  selection  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
of  ape-like  creatures  living  originally  in  tropical  forests, 
but  gradually  spreading  beyond  the  special  conditions  of 
tropical  life  into  other  conditions  and  seeking  to  hold 
their  own  and  to  nourish  themselves  and  their  young. 
They  have  had  to  contend  with  one  another  for  food 
and  safety  and  to  defend  themselves  either  by  violence 
or  by  craft  against  predatory  animals  and  competitors  of 
all  kinds. 

There  are  certain  notions  still  current  dating  from 
Roman  times  as  to  differences  between  man  and  apes, 
which  are  simply  erroneous  and  fanciful  in  origin.  Thus, 
at  one  time  the  possession  of  a  tail  was  supposed  to 
separate  animals,  including  monkeys  and  apes,  from 
man.  The  rare  abnormal  cases  in  which  the  end  of  the 
vertebral  column  of  man  is  free  and  projects  as  a  tail, 


240  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

were,  a  couple  of  hundred  years  ago,  cited  with  wonder 
and  head-shakings  as  a  proof  that  there  was,  after  all,  a 
real  similarity  in  man's  structure  to  that  of  animals,  and 
pictures  of  the  "  Homo  caudatus,"  or  tailed  man,  were  to 
be  found  in  ancient  books  dealing  with  marvels  and 
mysteries.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  three  or  four  small 
insignificant  vertebrae,  almost  immovable,  are  always 
present  in  man  attached  to  the  great  bone  called  the 
sacrum,  formed  by  the  union  of  five  vertebrae.  These 
small  vertebrae,  to  which  the  name  "  coccyx  "  is  applied, 
are  sunk  beneath  the  skin  and  fat,  at  the  end  of  the 
backbone,  and  though  they  correspond  to  bones  of  the 
tail  of  other  animals,  they  are,  in  normal  mankind,  thus 
concealed  from  view.  Precisely  the  same  atrophy  and 
concealment  of  the  bones  of  the  tail  is  found  in  the 
gorilla,  chimpanzee,  orang,  and  gibbons.  They  are  all 
of  them,  seen  in  the  flesh,  as  tail-less  as  man  is,  and  seen 
in  skeleton  have  precisely  the  same  number  of  minute 
tail  bones  forming  a  "  coccyx."  This  is  true  not  only  of 
the  higher  apes  mentioned,  but  of  the  Barbary  ape — 
which  lives  at  Gibraltar — whilst  others,  such  as  the 
mandrill,  have  very  short  tails.  In  fact,  the  tail  is  a 
very  variable  appendage  in  monkeys,  and,  as  the  Manx 
breed  shows,  also  in  cats.  It  is  mainly  "  decorative  "  in 
the  old-world  monkeys,  and  is  probably  maintained  by 
sexual  selection.  It  is  only  in  the  new-world  monkeys 
that  it  has  acquired  obvious  mechanical  value.  In  them 
it  is  prehensile,  and  is  used  with  great  effect  in  swinging 
among  the  trees  from  branch  to  branch,  whilst  the 
hands  and  feet  are  left  free  to  grasp  any  new  support. 

Another  feature  which  is  commonly,  but  erroneously, 
supposed  to  constitute  a  great  difference  between  man 
and  apes  is  the  hairiness  of  the  latter.  This  is  only  a 
difference  of  degree,  for  the  whole  surface  of  the  body  of 


FROM  APE  TO  MAN  241 

man,  excepting  the  eyelids,  lips,  palms  of  the  hands,  and 
soles  of  the  feet,  is  covered  by  hair,  as  it  is,  with  the 
same  exceptions,  in  the  apes.  It  is  true  that  the  hair  is 
very  fine  and  small  on  most  parts  of  the  body  of  man 
and  longer  on  the  head.  But  there  are  races  of  men 
(the  Ainos  of  Japan  and  the  pygmies  of  the  Upper  Nile) 
in  which  the  hair  on  the  body  is  coarser  and  more 
uniformly  distributed  than  in  others,  and  there  are 
individuals  of  exceptional  "  hairiness "  in  all  races  of 
man.  Moreover,  before  birth  a  coat  of  relatively  coarse 
and  abundant  hair,  called  the  "  lanugo,"  is  shed  by  the 
human  foetus.  One  variety  of  chimpanzee  is  practically 
bald — that  is  to  say,  has  no  obvious  hair  on  the  cranial 
region  of  the  head.  The  celebrated  "  Sally,"  who  lived 
so  long  in  the  Zoological  Gardens  in  London,  was  one  of 
this  variety.  When  she  died,  I  placed  her  brain,  a 
remarkable  one,  in  the  museum  at  Oxford.  Thus  we  see 
that  neither  tail  nor  hairiness  separates  apes  from  men. 

So,  too,  the  notion  that  animals,  and  therefore  apes, 
do  not  and  cannot  laugh  is  erroneous.  Many  animals, 
including  chimpanzees,  laugh.  These  men-like  apes  also 
sing  and  dance  and  utter  sounds  (as  do  lower  monkeys) 
which  have  definite  meaning,  though  those  sounds  are 
very  few  in  number  and  variety,  and  are  separated  by  a 
long  period  of  elaboration  (both  of  skill  in  vocalization 
and  in  the  mental  development  necessary  to  give 
significance  to  the  sounds  produced),  from  what  we  call 
"  human  language  " — even  from  the  speech  of  the  most 
primitive  of  existing  men. 

It  is  often  assumed  as  a  matter  of  prejudice — with 

the  intention  of  marking  off  the  animal  world  to  which 

the  apes  belong,  from  ourselves,  the  human  race — that 

the  apes   show  little  intelligence,  reasoning  power,  and 

16 


242  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

constructive  aptitudes,  which  might  serve  as  the  beginning 
of  man's  arts  and  crafts,  were  man  derived  by  a  slow 
process  of  development  from  ape-like  animals  of  a  long 
past  geologic  period.  The  fact  is  that  there  has  been 
very  little  opportunity  for  studying  the  capacities  of  apes 
in  regard  to  such  matters,  since  when  kept  in  cages  they 
have  not  the  opportunity  of  showing  the  skill  and 
understanding  which  in  their  natural  conditions  would 
be  obvious.  The  monkeys  show  (and  this  has  been 
especially  observed  in  the  chimpanzee),  in  a  degree 
greater  than  is  seen  in  other  animals,  the  mental  quality 
which  we  call  "  curiosity."  And  this  is  combined  with  a 
persistence  and  determination  in  observation  and  in 
experiment  with  the  purpose  of  satisfying  that  curiosity 
which  is  rarely,  if  ever,  exhibited  by  other  animals  to 
anything  like  the  same  extent. 

The  higher  apes  will  use  their  fingers  to  turn  the 
screws  which  fasten  down  the  lid  of  a  box  in  order  to 
see  what  is  inside.  Lately  the  large  orang  in  the 
Zoological  Gardens  of  London  succeeded,  after  long 
efforts,  in  unwinding  the  wire  fastenings  of  its  cage  and 
escaping  into  the  open.  It  climbed  into  a  tree,  and 
immediately  constructed  for  itself  a  platform  of  branches 
which  it  broke  off  from  the  tree.  It  then  sat  upon  this 
platform,  as  is  its  habit  when  in  its  native  forest.  Many 
of  the  larger  monkeys  have  great  skill  in  throwing 
stones,  sending  them  with  considerable  force  and  good 
aim.  They  select  stones  of  size  and  weight  appropriate 
to  their  purpose,  and  it  would  not  be  surprising  should 
apes  have  learnt  to  select  stones  for  other  purposes,  such 
as  cracking  nuts  or  the  shells  of  molluscs,  in  order  to 
extract  the  soft  nourishing  food  which  they  contain. 
They  are  known  to  make  use  of  stones  for  such  pur- 
poses, and  it  would  be  but  a  short  step  in  advance  for 


FROM  APE  TO  MAN  243 

them  to  choose  one  suitable  for  use  as  a  hammer,  and 
another  suitable  for  use  as  a  piercing  or  cutting  tool. 
And  from  such  a  stage  there  is  a  gradual  and  easy 
passage  to  the  simplest  breaking  and  preparation  of 
stones  for  use — in  fact,  to  the  earliest  fabrication  of 
"  implements." 

It  is  obvious  when  we  compare  not  only  the  structure 
but  what  we  know  of  the  ways  and  habits  of  the  lowest 
savages  and  the  highest  apes,  that  it  is  not  by  mere 
strength,  swiftness,  or  agility  that  man  has  flourished  and 
established  himself,  leaving  the  apes  far  behind  him  as 
"  inferior  "  creatures,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  is  not 
deficient  in  these  qualities.  It  is  by  his  observation, 
knowledge,  memory,  and  purposive  skill  that  he  has 
succeeded,  and  it  is  easy  to  point  out  a  whole  series  of 
modifications  of  form  separating  man  from  apes,  which 
are  clearly  contributory  to  the  development  of  the  mental 
qualities  which  give  him  his  actual  superiority.  I  think 
we  are  justified  in  taking  the  large  opposable  thumb  and 
fingers  as  the  starting-point  in  man's  emergence  from  the 
ape  stage  of  his  ancestry.  The  exploring  hand,  with  its 
thumb  and  forefinger,  is  the  great  instrument  by  which 
the  intelligence,  first  of  the  monkey  and  then  of  man, 
has  been  developed.  The  thumb  of  the  gorilla  is,  in 
proportion  to  the  size  of  the  fingers,  very  much  smaller 
than  that  of  man,  but  bigger  than  that  of  the  chimpanzee, 
and  much  bigger  than  that  of  the  orang  and  of  lower 
monkeys.  It  is  evident  that  the  thumb  has  increased  in 
size  in  the  man-like  apes,  and  in  man  himself  this  in- 
crease has  been  carried  much  further,  and  led  to  the 
perfecting  of  the  hand  as  an  instrument  of  exploration 
and  construction.  Contributory  to  the  perfecting  of  the 
hand  has  been  the  gradual  attainment  of  the  upright 
carriage,  and  the  use  of  the  feet  alone  for  walking,  and 


244  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  reservation  of  the  hand  for  delicate  exploring  opera- 
tions, and  the  bringing  of  objects  near  to  the  eye,  to  the 
nose,  the  ear,  and  the  mouth  for  investigation  by  the 
great  organs  of  special  sense.  The  foot  has  become 
"  plantigrade "  in  connexion  with  the  assumption  of 
upright  carriage.  It  has  independently  become  planti- 
grade in  the  gibbons  and  the  baboons.  That  is  to  say, 
we  and  they  do  not  walk  on  the  edge  of  the  half-grasping 
foot  as  do  the  gorilla,  chimpanzee,  and  orang,  but  more 
steadily  and  firmly  on  its  flat  sole  (plantar  surface),  as  do 
the  bears  and  some  other  animals.  At  the  same  time 
man  has  lost  very  greatly  (but  not  entirely)  the  power 
of  grasping  with  his  toes.  The  upright  carriage  enabled 
the  early  ancestors  of  man  to  survey,  and  so  to  judge 
the  conditions  of  safety  or  danger  at  a  distance  from 
them,  as  well  as  to  devote  their  hands  to  new  and  special 
uses. 


CHAPTER    XXVII 
THE  SKELETON  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN 

THE  upright  carriage  of  man  has  entailed  remarkable 
changes  in  the  proportions  and  shapes  of  parts  of 
his  body,  as  well  as  leading  to  special  skill  in  the  use  of 
his  hands.  The  vertebral  column  of  man  has  not  the 
single  curve  of  a  bow,  as  it  has  (practically)  in  the  higher 
apes,  but  as  he  stands  it  curves  (slightly,  it  is  true,  but 
definitely)  forward  at  the  neck,  backward  at  the  chest, 
forward  at  the  loins,  and  backward  again  at  the  hips,  an 
arrangement  which  appears  to  protect  to  some  extent 
the  brain  from  the  transmission  to  it  along  the  vertebral 
column  of  the  shock  caused  by  the  sudden  impact  of  the 
feet  on  the  ground  in  jumping.  The  head  is  balanced 
on  the  top  of  this  slightly  elastic  curvilinear  column,  the 
joint  by  which  the  skull  rests  on  the  vertebrae  being 
placed  beneath  the  brain-box  and  near  the  middle  region 
of  the  skull.  The  ligaments  which  hold  the  skull  in 
place  are  smaller  than  those  in  monkeys.  In  the  higher 
apes  the  skull  is  not  so  balanced,  but  is  held  by  very 
strong  ligaments  and  muscles  braced,  as  it  were,  on  to 
the  end  of  the  forwardly  sloping,  nearly  straight,  back- 
bone, from  which  it  projects,  and  has  further  to  be  held 
in  position  by  a  great  ligament  attached  to  it  and  the 
dorsal  processes  of  the  neck  vertebrae.  As  an  adapta- 
tion to  the  upright  carriage  of  man,  the  shape  of  his 

pelvic  bones  is  that  of  a  basin   upon  which  his   coiled 

245 


246  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

mass  of  intestines  can  rest  when  he  stands  erect.  The 
pelvic  bones  of  the  higher  apes  are  flat,  nearly  parallel 
with  the  broad  plane  of  the  back,  and  give  no  such 
support ;  the  viscera  have  to  rest  against  the  wall  of  the 
abdomen  in  the  stooping  position  assumed  by  these 
animals  in  walking.  The  abdominal  walls  are  conse- 
quently strong  and  thick,  and  the  abdomen  protrudes, 
as  does  that  of  a  very  young  child.  One  result  of  man's 
upright  carriage,  showing  that  it  is  a  recent  acquirement 
and  one  to  which  he  is  not  completely  adapted,  is  the 
frequent  occurrence  in  him  of  "  hernia,"  or  protrusion  of 
the  intestine  through  certain  spaces  in  the  deep  fibrous 
wall  of  the  abdomen.  There  would  be  no  excessive 
pressure  upon  these  spaces  (near  the  groin),  and  there- 
fore little  danger  of  hernia,  were  it  not  for  man's  newly- 
acquired  habit  of  erect  gait.  He  is  still  incompletely 
adapted  to  the  upright  pose. 

The  arms  of  man  are  relatively  shorter  and  his  legs 
much  longer  than  in  the  man-like  apes.  The  Neander- 
men  were  more  ape-like  in  these  proportions  than  are 
modern  races  of  man,  and  show  also  an  "  ape-like " 
curvature  of  the  thigh  bone  which  in  man  is  straight. 
Whilst  the  arm  and  hand  of  man  has  gradually  become 
a  more  delicate  thing  than  that  of  the  apes,  and  capable 
of  much  greater  variety  and  efficiency  in  the  movements 
of  its  parts,  this  condition  has  come  about  by  alteration 
in  proportions  and  to  some  extent  shape,  and  not  by 
any  great  change  in  construction.  Only  two  muscles 
exist  in  connexion  with  man's  hand  not  found  in  that 
of  the  higher  apes.  They  are  small  slips  adding  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  fingers  and  thumb,  whilst  in  the  foot 
there  is  in  man  a  small  muscle  connected  with  its  outer 
border — "the  peroneus  tertius" — which  helps  to  keep 
the  sole  of  the  foot  turned  downwards,  and  is  not  present 


THE  SKELETON  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN     247 

in  the  apes.  The  general  shape  and  proportionate  size 
of  the  muscles  of  the  leg  in  man  give  it  a  very  different 
appearance  from  that  of  the  ape ;  but  there  are  no 
muscles  or  bones  present  which  are  not  found  in  the 
apes.  The  beautiful  outline  and  form  of  the  human  leg 
and  buttocks  are  directly  the  result  of  the  increased 
size  of  certain  muscles  used  in  maintaining  the  upright 
position,  and  in  the  peculiarly  human  swing  of  the  leg 
in  walking  and  running.  Their  beauty,  like  that  of  the 
other  specially  human  features  which  we  consider  beauti- 
ful, depends  upon  the  fact  that  their  development,  in  due 
proportion,  is  a  necessary  condition  of  efficiency,  activity, 
and  strength  in  movements  and  attitudes  which  have 
gradually  been  acquired  by  man,  and  distinguish  him 
from  the  apes.  Our  admiration  for  them  is  a  sort  of 
self-love,  a  worship  of  an  ideal  of  efficiency  and  balance 
which  is  specifically  "  human,"  and  is  more  or  less  fully 
realized  in  every  individual.  Probably  sexual  selection 
has  had  a  large  share  in  thus  moulding  the  human  form. 
The  apes  do  not  present  the  development  of  the  gluteal 
region  characteristic  of  man,  and  the  muscles  of  both  the 
arms  and  legs  in  them  are,  though  very  powerful,  less 
fleshy  and  more  "  stringy "  than  those  of  man.  There 
is,  indeed,  a  difference  of  "  quality "  in  the  muscles  of 
apes  and  men,  especially  civilized  men,  which  needs 
investigation  by  the  microscopist  and  experimental 
physiologist. 

Though  we  necessarily  compare  man  with  the  highest 
existing  apes,  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  man-like 
ape  from  which  the  earliest  ape-like  men  developed  was 
in  fact  a  gorilla  or  a  chimpanzee.  The  survival  of  the 
gorilla  and  chimpanzee  at  this  day  necessarily  implies 
that  they  were  not  the  actual  ancestral  forms  which 
became  modified  and  superseded  in  the  course  of  man's 


248  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

development.  Very  probably  the  ape  (the  creature  more 
ape-like  than  man-like,  of  which  more  anon)  from  which 
man  took  his  direct  descent  had  already  developed  a 
plantigrade  foot — that  is  a  foot  of  which  the  sole  is 
placed  on  the  ground  for  support,  as  it  is  in  gibbons, 
baboons,  and  bears,  but  not  in  most  apes,  nor  in  cats, 
dogs,  sheep,  and  horses !  And  probably  the  hands  of 
that  ancestral  ape  were  already  used  more  dexterously  in 
consequence,  and  the  dog  teeth  were  less  needed  either  in 
fighting  or  in  breaking  up  food  and  so  had  become  smaller. 

This  reflection  brings  us  to  the  differences  between 
the  teeth  of  a  man  and  those  of  apes.  The  face  of 
apes  is  drawn  forward  so  as  to  approach  in  form  the 
"  muzzle "  of  a  dog.  It  is  far  less  muzzle-like  in  the 
more  man-like  apes  than  in  the  dog-faced  baboons,  and 
in  the  least  civilized  living  races  of  man  is  much  less 
prominent — what  is  called  "  prognathous  " — than  in  the 
highest  existing  apes.  In  civilized  living  races  of  man  it 
is  markedly  reduced,  so  that  in  the  habitual  carriage 
of  the  head,  with  the  eyes  looking  forward  over  a 
horizontal  plane  at  right  angles  to  the  vertical  or  up- 
right body,  the  front  border  of  the  jaws,  in  which  the 
chisel-like  incisor  teeth  are  set,  usually  projects  but  very 
little  beyond  the  brow  or  forehead.  In  Greek  sculpture 
and  other  examples  regarded  by  us  as  types  of  "  beauty," 
the  jaws  do  not  project  at  all.  Such  a  face  is  called 
"  orthognathous."  This  modification  of  the  shape  of  the 
face  is  due  to  the  progressive  dwindling  in  the  size  of  the 
front  part  of  the  jaw  and  its  teeth  in  the  series  dog,  ape,  less- 
civilized  man,  highly-civilized  man,  and  is  accompanied  by 
an  increase  in  the  size  of  the  front  part  of  the  brain.  The 
number  of  the  teeth  and  their  arrangement  in  groups  are 
identical  in  man  and  the  apes.  The  most  important  differ- 
ence is  in  the  size  of  the  front  teeth,and  especially  in  the  size 


THE  SKELETON  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN     249 

of  the  "  corner  "  teeth  (one  on  each  side  above  and  below), 
also  called  eye-teeth,  dog-teeth,  or  "  canines."  In  the 
highest  apes,  as  in  all  monkeys,  the  canine  teeth  are  very 
large,  and  even  tusk-like  in  the  males,  projecting  above  the 
horizonal  line  formed  by  the  crowns  of  the  other  teeth.  This 
projecting  of  the  canine  teeth  results  in  their  not  meeting 
one  another  point  to  point  when  the  jaws  are  closed, 
but  necessitates  one,  the  lower,  shutting  in  front  of  the 
other,  and  a  space  is  left  in  the  row  of  teeth,  both  in  the 
upper  and  the  lower  jaw,  for  this  interlocking  of  the  great 
canines.  It  is  called  a  "  diastema."  Man  stands  in  strong 
contrast  to  the  apes  in  this  respect.  His  canines  do  not 
project  beyond  the  level  of  the  neighbouring  teeth,  and 
there  is  no  "  diastema  "  or  gap  in  either  the  upper  or 
lower  row  of  his  teeth.1  There  is  no  trace  of  such  a 
gap  nor  any  excess  of  size  of  the  canines  in  any  living 
race  of  men,  and  what  is  more  remarkable,  the  jaws  of 
very  ancient  prehistoric  men  which  have  been  found  in 
the  Middle  Pleistocene — the  Neander  or  Moustierian 
men  as  well  as  the  more  ancient  jaw  from  Heidelberg 
(see  p.  286) — do  not  show  any  difference  in  this  respect 
from  the  most  advanced  European  race.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  presented 
by  the  recently  discovered  "  Piltdown  "  lower  jaw  that 
it  had  a  larger  canine  tooth  than  that  of  any  recent  or 
fossil  man,  and  consequently  a  gap  or  "  diastema  "  in  the 
row  of  teeth  (see  Chap.  XXX).  This  difference  between 
men  and  apes  is  all  the  more  marked  since  the  grinders 
or  cheek  teeth  (called  also  molars)  of  man  and  the 
higher  apes  agree  very  closely,  each  to  each  in  order  of 
their  position,  in  the  pattern  formed  by  the  irregular 
surface  of  the  crown.  There  are  some  slight  differences 

1  See  Plates  VII.  and  VIII.,  p.  166,  in  "Science  from  an  Easy 
Chair,"  Second  Series,  for  careful  drawings  of  the  complete  series  of 
teeth  in  both  the  upper  and  lower  jaw  of  Man  and  of  an  Ape. 


250  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

in  relative  size  and  in  the  order  of  their  "  cutting "  or 
growth,  but  these  are  trivial.  The  jaws  of  man  show  their 
derivation  by  gradual  dwindling  from  the  larger  projecting 
jaws  seen  in  apes  and  monkeys,  in  the  close  setting  (that  is 
to  say,  "  crowding  ")  of  the  teeth,  and  also  in  the  dwindling 
and  late  "  cutting  "  of  the  last  tooth,  in  each  jaw  above  and 
below,  which  we  call  the  wisdom  tooth.  The  "  wisdom 
teeth"  are  in  the  higher  races  of  men  on  their  way  to 
total  disappearance.  In  lower  races  of  men  they  are 
larger  than  in  the  higher,  and  in  the  man-like  apes  are  of 
full  size,  and  there  is  plenty  of  room  in  the  jaw  for  them. 

In  the  highest  apes  as  well  as  the  lower,  the  bony 
lower  jaw  slopes  gradually  backwards  and  downwards 
from  the  palisade  of  front  chisel-like  teeth  or  incisors 
(see  Fig.  230,  p.  277).  There  is  no  bony  projection 
below  the  front  teeth — in  fact,  no  bony  "  chin."  But  in 
all  modern  races  of  men  the  front  part  of  the  semicircle 
arch  of  teeth  has  shrunk  or  "  withdrawn  "  considerably 
or  more  than  has  the  bony  jaw  in  which  the  teeth  are 
set.  Consequently  the  bone  projects  in  front  of  the 
front  teeth  as  the  bony  chin  (see  Fig.  23  A,  p.  277,  and 
also  "  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  1910,  pp.  404,  405). 
This  is  characteristic  of  modern  races  of  man  and  occurs 
in  no  other  animal.  The  very  remarkable  fact  has 
recently  been  established  that  in  the  ancient  species  of 
man  from  the  Middle  and  Lower  Pleistocene — the 
Neander  man  and  the  Heidelberg  man  (Homo  Neander- 
thalensis) — this  extra  or  excessive  shrinking  of  the  dental 
arch  (the  half-circle  formed  by  the  complete  row  of  teeth) 
had  not  taken  place.  Though  the  teeth  are  placed 
closely  side  by  side  and  have  the  same  shape  as  in 
modern  man,  they  are  a  little  bigger  and  form  a  larger 
and  longer  arch — more  like  a  horse-shoe  than  a  semi- 
circle, and  have  not  shrunk  back  so  as  to  leave  a  project- 


THE  SKELETON  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN     251 

ing  bony  chin.  The  bony  jaw  recedes  in  these  early 
races  of  men  from  the  line  of  the  front  teeth  as  it  does 
in  the  apes.  They  have  no  chin  (see  Fig.  25,  p.  286). 

Since  we  are  all  accustomed  to  regard  a  well-marked 
chin  as  a  necessary  feature  of  a  beautiful  human  face, 
and  to  deplore  or  disapprove  the  receding  or  evanescent 
chin,  it  is  not  improbable  that  sexual  selection  has 
favoured  the  recession  of  the  dental  arch  with  the  reten- 
tion of  the  original  bulk  of  the  lower  front  margin  of  the 
jaw  and  chin,  though  why  the  chin  should  be  thus 
appreciated  is  a  matter  of  speculation.  It  is  remarkable 
that  in  many  of  the  monkeys  the  hair  grows  forward  as 
a  projecting  beard  on  the  front  of  the  jaw,  so  as  to 
resemble  a  chin  although  no  chin  is  there.  It  is  also  the 
fact  that  some  uncivilized  races  of  men  trim  the  beard 
and  train  it  in  a  forward  growth  so  as  to  suggest  the 
possession  of  a  very  prominent  chin,  when  in  reality 
their  solid  chins  of  flesh  and  bone  are  not  especially 
large. 

It  is  not  easy  to  suggest  how  the  reduction  in  size 
of  the  canines  and  front  teeth  and  of  the  length  of  the 
jaw  could  be  of  such  advantage  to  incipient  man  as  to 
lead  to  the  survival  of  those  individuals  in  which  these 
parts  were  least  developed,  and  so  gradually  to  the 
crowding  of  the  teeth,  reduced  in  size,  into  a  jaw  of 
reduced  length,  whilst  at  a  late  stage,  long  after  man 
was  man  and  no  ape,  the  teeth  became  so  reduced  in 
volume  as  to  leave  the  lower  margin  of  the  lower  jaw — 
projecting  far  in  front  of  them  as  the  ''chin,"  the 
eminently  human  chin.  The  nutrition  of  these  parts 
placed  in  the  head  near  the  brain,  the  great  canine 
having  so  vast  a  fang  that  it  reaches  up  to  the  eye- 
socket,  whence  it  is  called  the  "  eye-tooth,"  renders  it 
probable  that  there  is  a  relation  depending  on  nutrition 


252  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

and  blood  supply  between  them  and  that  all-important 
organ  contained  in  the  neighbouring  bony  box,  the 
brain.  As  the  great  teeth  and  long  jaw  have  dwindled, 
the  brain  has  increased  in  volume,  and,  what  is  more 
important,  in  activity. 

Other  neighbouring  bony  structures  have  dwindled 
whilst  the  brain  has  increased.  The  great  longitudinal 
and  transverse  crests  of  bone  seen  on  the  skull  of  the 
gorilla  may  never  have  existed  in  that  form  of  ape  from 
which  man  is  derived,  but  a  tendency  to  such  ridge-like 
outgrowth  and  to  a  greater  thickness  of  the  bony  wall 
of  the  brain-case  characterizes  apes  as  distinguished  from 
men,  and  its  disappearance  is  one  of  the  changes  which 
have  accompanied  the  expansion  of  the  brain-case  and  the 
increased  size  of  brain  in  man.  Lower  races  of  existing 
men  have  frequently  thicker  skulls  than  the  higher  races. 
The  bony  development  of  the  skull  in  the  higher  apes 
is  especially  remarkable  in  the  region  just  above  the  eye. 
The  upper  border  of  the  orbit  is  greatly  thickened,  and 
projects  as  a  bony  arch  overhanging  the  eye.  But  the 
extent  of  this  growth,  as  also  of  crests  on  the  skull,  varies 
in  individuals,  and  is  much  smaller  in  females  than  in 
males.  In  the  young  these  ridges  and  prominences  are 
absent.  It  is  accordingly  no  very  great  change  that 
they  should  disappear  altogether  in  man,  even  were  they 
as  large  in  the  ape-like  ancestor  of  man,  which  probably 
they  were  not.  But  the  existence  of  a  considerable 
thickening  and  forward  growth  of  the  eyebrow  region  of 
the  skull  is  noticed  in  many  human  skulls.  It  is 
particularly  large  in  some  skulls  of  Australian  "black- 
fellows,"  and  is  still  larger  in  and  characteristic  of  the 
ancient  species  of  men  of  the  Moustierian  period  in 
Europe,  Homo  Neanderthalensis. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 
THE  BRAIN  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN 

A  GREAT  and  undoubtedly  very  important  differ- 
ence between  man  and  apes  is  the  much  greater 
size  of  the  brain  in  man.  This  difference  is  most  con- 
veniently measured  by  filling  the  cavity  of  a  skull,  once 
occupied  by  the  brain,  with  shot  or  other  such  material, 
and  then  measuring  the  bulk  of  the  material  required 
for  that  purpose.  The  unit  which  it  is  convenient  to 
use  in  all  such  measurements  is  the  cubic  centimetre, 
because  it  is  that  used  by  scientific  workers  all  over  the 
world.  A  cubic  centimetre  is  a  cube  the  side  of  which 
is  a  centimetre  long,  and  two  and  a  half  centimetres  are 
equal  to  one  inch.  Moreover,  if  ever  one  is  doubtful  as 
to  just  how  much  an  inch  is,  one  has  only  to  get  hold  of 
a  halfpenny  and  mark  off  its  breadth  on  a  piece  of  paper. 
That  is  an  inch,  and  two-fifths  of  it  are  a  centimetre. 
Using,  then,  cubic  centimetres  as  our  units,  we  find  that 
a  good  average  European  human  brain  is  of  the  bulk  of 
1500  units.  The  gorilla  has  a  slightly  larger  brain  than 
the  chimpanzee  or  the  orang.  Individual  specimens 
differ  a  good  deal.  This  is  noteworthy  as  showing  a 
tendency  of  this  important  organ  to  vary.  One  of  good 
medium  bulk  measures  500  units,  or  a  third  of  that  of 
the  well-developed  European.  The  size  of  European 
human  brains  also  varies  within  very  large  limits — about 
a  third  more  and  a  third  less — that  is,  from  about  1000 


254  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

units  to  nearly  2000.  Idiots  have  abnormally  small 
brains  which  are  often  deformed.  We  leave  them  aside 
for  the  moment.  Healthy  European  adults  have  been 
measured  with  a  brain  of  only  1000  units.  Australian 
"  black-fellows "  have,  it  seems,  in  some  cases  a  brain 
which  measures  as  little  as  900  units,  but  in  others 
it  reaches  1500.  The  skull  of  the  fossil  man  from 
Pleistocene  (possibly  Pliocene)  gravels  in  Java  (known 
as  Pithecanthropus)  had  a  capacity  of  only  900  units. 

If  we  suppose  (as  it  is  legitimate  to  do)  that  some 
specimens  of  the  gorilla  may  have  a  brain  a  third  larger 
than  the  average  we  get  670  units  for  the  biggest  gorilla 
brain,  and  if  we  similarly  assume  that  the  primitive 
human  race  of  the  Java  gravel  varied  to  the  same 
extent — namely,  by  a  third  more  or  less  around  900  as 
the  normal — we  find  that  the  greatest  size  of  the  gorilla 
brain  overlaps  the  smallest  of  the  Javan  Pithecanthropus, 
whilst  the  largest  of  that  race  would  overlap  not  only 
the  Australian  but  the  smaller-sized  brains  of  Europeans. 
Hence,  if  we  accept,  as  we  must,  the  fact  that  the  brain 
of  man  and  the  man-like  apes  naturally  varies  greatly 
in  volume  in  different  individuals,  there  is  no  absolute 
gap  in  regard  to  size  between  the  higher  races  of  man 
and  the  apes.  The  difference  is  bridged  over  by  the 
lower  races  of  man  and  the  exceptional  individuals  of 
apes. 

A  remarkable  feature  in  regard  to  man's  brain  is  its 
growth.  Since  it  is  contained  in  a  bony  box,  which  in 
the  adult  is  firmly  ossified  and  incapable  of  expansion, 
it  is  obvious  that  the  brain,  too,  must  cease  growing 
when  the  bony  box  has  closed  in.  In  the  apes  this 
occurs  at  an  earlier  age  than  in  man.  The  brain-box 
has  its  sides  and  roof  constituted  by  a  number  of  plate- 


THE  BRAIN  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN       255 

like  pieces  of  bone,  which  increase  in  area  by  addition 
to  their  margins,  and  finally  meet  each  other  and  grow 
into  one  another,  forming  an  irregular  notched  line  of 
junction,  which  is  called  a  "  suture."  The  sutures  them- 
selves are  often  obliterated  by  bony  deposit  in  mature 
life.  In  man  the  bony  plates  of  the  skull  are  separated 
by  large  membranous  interspaces  at  birth — "  the  fonta- 
nelles" — and  by  delay  in  the  junction  of  the  bony  pieces 
the  expansion  of  the  brain  is  permitted.  About  one- 
fourth  of  the  cases  of  idiocy  reported  upon  by  medical 
observers  are  accompanied  by  an  unusually  small  size  of 
the  brain-case  (as  small  in  some  cases  as  750  units),  due 
to  the  premature  closure  of  its  bony  walls  at  an  un- 
usually early  period  of  growth.  It,  indeed,  seems 
(though  this  is  a  suggestion  rather  than  a  demonstrated 
conclusion)  that  the  increase  of  the  size  of  the  brain  in 
normal  men,  as  compared  with  apes,  and  the  consequent 
development  of  increased  mental  capacity  in  man,  may 
be  directly  set  up  by  a  delay  in  the  ossification  of  the 
walls  of  the  brain-case  in  man,  as  compared  with  his 
ape-like  progenitors. 

One  of  the  most  definite  distinctions  between  present 
man  and  the  higher  apes  is  the  length  of  time  during 
which  the  period  of  growth — namely,  "  childhood  " — and 
the  subsequent  adolescent  stage  of  development  is  pro- 
longed. The  chimpanzee  "  Sally "  was  full-grown  and 
adult  at  eight  years  of  age.  Savage  races  show  maturity 
at  an  age  which  seems  to  Europeans  astonishing — some- 
times as  early  as  the  eleventh  year.  But  even  within 
the  European  area  there  is  great  variation  in  this  matter, 
the  Southern  people  maturing  more  rapidly  than  the 
Northern.  There  certainly  is  a  tendency  in  modern 
civilization  to  defer  the  recognition  of  emergence  from 
childhood,  though  whether  the  physical  facts  of  growth 


256  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

and  maturity  of  structure  justify  such  a  delay  is  not 
obvious.  The  history  of  our  schools  and  universities 
and  the  records  as  to  the  age  at  which  marriage  takes 
place  bear  evidence  of  this  modern  increase  of  the 
duration  of  adolescence.  In  any  case,  whether  the 
prolongation  of  the  period  of  physical  growth  and 
development  is  even  now  still  being  increased,  it  is 
certain  that  the  extension  has  taken  place  in  former 
ages,  and  that  the  mental  development  of  man  is  directly 
related  in  the  first  place  to  this  increased  period  of 
growth,  and  in  the  second  place  to  the  prolongation  of 
the  period  of  organized  "  education "  directed  by  the 
elder  generation.  The  brain  of  the  human  child  at 
four  years  of  age  may  not  infrequently  reach  as  much 
as  1300  units  in  volume — more  than  double  that  of  a 
full-grown  gorilla — and  it  continues  to  increase  in  volume 
for  some  eight  years,  though  it  is  difficult  to  say  precisely 
when  the  interlocking  of  the  bony  pieces  of  the  skull 
reaches  a  point  when  they  can  no  longer  yield  to  the 
expansion  of  the  brain.  The  increase  of  the  cavity  of 
the  skull  practically  ceases  in  childhood,  and  the  increase 
in  the  size  of  the  head  subsequently  is  due  to  the  in- 
creased size  of  muscles  and  fibrous  structures  on  the 
outer  surface  of  the  brain-box.  True  as  it  is  that  man's 
brain  is  much  larger  than  that  of  the  higher  apes,  it  is 
also  true  that  the  difference  is  far  greater  between  the 
higher  apes  and  the  lower  monkeys  both  as  to  the  size 
of  the  brain  and  the  complexity  of  the  folds  and  furrows 
which  mark  the  surface  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  In 
these  respects,  as  in  every  other  anatomical  feature,  as 
was  insisted  by  Huxley,  there  is  less  difference  between 
man  and  the  higher  apes  than  between  the  higher  apes 
and  the  lower  monkeys,  so  that  there  is  no  pretext  for 
placing  man  in  a  group  apart  from  the  apes  and  monkeys 
or  for  suggesting  the  existence  of  any  great  structural 


THE  BRAIN  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN       257 

chasrn  between   man  and   apes ;    on   the    contrary,   their 
likeness  in  all  important  details  of  structure  is  very  close. 

The  comparison  of  the  size  of  the  brain  in  various 
cases  which  has  just  been  made  is  one  of  absolute  size, 
leaving  out  of  consideration  the  size  and  weight  of  the 
body  and  limbs.  Putting  aside  the  exceptional  pygmy 
races  of  man  (which  there  is  no  reason  to  regard  as 
primitive),  the  average  adult  man  is  larger  and  heavier 
than  the  chimpanzee,  and  taller  than,  though  not  so 
powerful  as,  the  orang.  The  gibbons  are  quite  small 
— rarely  3  feet  in  height — but  the  male  gorilla  is,  when 
adult,  a  much  heavier  animal  than  man,  and  often 
measures  5  feet  8  inches  from  the  heel  to  the  top  of 
the  head.  Recently  even  larger  specimens  have  been 
measured,  and  6  feet  6  inches  is  quoted  (probably  an 
over-estimate)  as  the  height  attained  by  some  specimens. 
This  fact  removes  any  difficulty  about  comparing  the 
absolute  size  of  brain  in  man  and  these  apes.  It  also 
renders  it  unlikely  that  the  primitive  ape-men  or  men- 
apes  were  smaller  than  modern  men,  whilst  the  large  size 
and  weight  of  some  of  the  earliest  "  shaped  "  flints  (of 
Pliocene  age)  attributed  to  primitive  man,  make  it 
probable  that  the  men  who  used  these  flints  were  larger 
and  more  powerful,  at  any  rate  in  the  hands  and  arms, 
than  modern  races  of  men.  Size  and  strength  are,  then, 
not  points  which  offer  any  difficulty  in  the  passage  from 
ape  to  man. 

What  (it  may  well  be  asked)  is  the  significance  of 
man's  greater  brain  ?  What  was  the  advantage  to  man's 
ape-like  progenitors  in  an  increased  volume  of  brain?  It 
should  be  noted  at  once  that  the  pattern  of  the  "  con- 
volutions "  marked  out  on  the  surface  of  the  brain  by  a 
great  series  of  winding  "  ditches  "  or  "  furrows  "  is  based 
17 


258  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

on  one  common  plan  in  the  group  of  monkeys  and  man 
— a  plan  differing  from  that  seen  in  other  groups  which 
have  a  convoluted  brain-surface — for  instance  from  that 
seen  in  the  carnivora  (dogs,  bears,  and  cats)  and  again 
from  that  seen  in  the  ungulates  (hoofed  mammals). 
The  convolutions  of  the  brain  of  the  higher  apes 
have  been  minutely  compared  with  those  of  man's 
brain.  The  two  sets  of  convolutions  agree  very  closely, 
but  are  less  extensive  in  the  apes  and  certain  small 
tracts  of  convolutions  present  in  man,  are  deficient  in 
the  apes,  especially  in  the  frontal  region  and  at  the 
hinder  or  occipital  region.  We  know  very  little  of  the 
exact  significance  of  each  region  of  convolution  in  the 
brain.  The  existence  of  convolutions  separated  by 
furrows ^  clearly  enough  increases  the  amount  of  surface 
of  the  brain,  which  consists  of  a  grey  substance  called 
"  the  cortex  of  the  brain,"  and  is  known  to  be  a  peculiar 
and  specially  active  material.  The  mere  comparison  of 
the  size  and  height  of  the  frontal  region  in  different 
animals  and  in  man  justifies  the  conclusion  that  an 
increase  of  this  part  of  the  brain  is  more  especially  re- 
lated to  increased  intelligence.  Further,  the  facts  derived 
from  observation  of  the  consequences  of  disease  or  of 
mechanical  injury  in  man  have  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  "  faculty  of  language "  (the  significant  use  of 
words,  not  the  mere  production  of  them  as  sounds)  is 
especially  connected  with  one  of  the  frontal  convolutions, 
which  is  feebly  represented  in  the  apes.  The  convolu- 
tions of  the  brain  of  lower  races  of  men  have  not  been 
very  fully  studied,  but  the  brain  of  a  Hottentot  woman 
was  long  ago  carefully  described  and  illustrated,  showing 
less  complexity  of  the  convolutions  than  is  usual  in 
European  man,  and  making  a  distinct  approach  in  this 
respect  to  the  apes  ;  but  still  possessing  in  fair  proportion 
the  convolutions  characteristic  of  the  human  brain. 


THE  BRAIN  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN       259 

Abundance  of  convolutions  and  their  increase  at  this 
or  that  part  of  the  brain  must,  it  is  obvious,  increase  the 
active  brain  substance.  But  there  is  some  evidence  of  a 
special  kind  as  to  the  significance  of  increased  bulk  of 
the  entire  brain,  apart  from  the  folding  of  its  surface. 
This  is  afforded  by  the  brain  cavities  of  the  skulls  observed 
in  the  series  of  vertebrate  animals.  The  older  groups — 
those  "  lower,"  that  is  farthest  removed  from  man  and 
the  animals  most  like  him — have  in  proportion  to  the 
bulk  of  their  bodies  much  smaller  brains  than  the  later- 
developed  groups.  Thus  fishes  have  smaller  brains  than 
reptiles,  and  these  have  much  smaller  brains  than 
mammals.  A  cod-fish  has  in  proportion  to  its  bulk  of 
living  material  a  smaller  brain  than  a  crocodile  or  a 
turtle,  and  these  have  a  much  smaller  brain  than  a  pig. 
Not  only  so,  but  earlier  kinds  of  mammals  than  the  pig 
have  a  smaller  brain  proportionately  than  that  animal 
has,  and  pigs  have  a  smaller  brain  in  proportion  to  their 
bulk  than  monkeys,  and  monkeys  (as  we  have  seen)  a 
smaller  brain  than  man.  This  increase  of  size  is,  in 
general,  proportionate  to  an  increase  in  the  variety  and 
complexity  of  the  control  of  the  movements  of  the  body 
and  their  relation  to  the  activities  of  the  great  organs  of 
sense,  such  as  the  eyes,  and  the  organs  of  smell  and 
hearing. 

But  there  is  something  more  involved  in  the  increase 
of  the  brain  than  this.  We  now  know  that  the  brain  of 
very  many  kinds  of  animals  has  been  increasing  in  size 
in  the  later  geological  periods.  Huge  reptiles  as  big  as 
elephants  existed  on  the  land  surface  of  the  globe  before 
the  hairy,  warm-blooded  mammals  which  now  dominate 
the  situation  had  developed  in  number  or  in  size — 
namely,  in  the  period  of  and  before  the  chalk  which 
geologists  call  the  Mesozoic  or  secondary  period,  to 


260  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

distinguish  it  both  from  the  tertiary  period,  when 
mammals  were  abundant  and  large,  and  from  the 
Palaeozoic  or  primary  period,  at  the  end  of  which  terres- 
trial vertebrates  first  began  to  make  their  appearance. 
These  huge  reptiles  —  such  as  the  Iguanodon,  the 
Triceratops,  and  the  Diplodocus  (all  to  be  seen  in 
skeleton,  though  not  in  the  flesh,  at  the  Natural  History 
Museum) — had  brains  of  an  incredibly  small  size,  much 
smaller  in  proportion  to  their  bulk  than  those  of  living 
reptiles,  such  as  lizards  and  crocodiles.  The  same  extra- 
ordinary difference  of  size  of  brain  is  seen  when  we 
compare  the  large  living  mammals  with  their  equally 
large  extinct  forerunners  in  the  early  tertiary  strata. 
The  skulls  and  whole  skeletons  of  great  rhinoceros-like 
animals — some  of  them  ancestrally  related  to  our  living 
rhinoceroses — are  dug  up  in  early  tertiary  sands  and 
clays,  which  have  absurdly  small  brains.  We  can  take  a 
mould  of  the  interior  of  the  brain  cases  of  these  extinct 
animals  and  compare  them  with  that  of  the  recent 
rhinoceros.  We  find  that  the  extinct  animal's  brain  was 
in  many  cases  only  one-eighth  the  bulk  of  that  of  its 
modern  representative ! 

The  same  disproportion  in  the  size  of  the  more 
ancient  animal's  brain  is  found  when  we  compare  the 
brain  of  the  modern  horse  with  that  of  its  early  tertiary 
ancestors.  The  modern  animal  has,  as  a  rule,  a  very 
greatly  increased  size  of  brain  when  compared  with  its 
Miocene  forefather.  In  fact,  it  seems  that  the  brain  has 
had,  as  it  were,  an  independent  development  in  several 
lines  of  descent,  and  whilst  the  rest  of  the  structure  of 
the  ancestral  form  has  been  only  slightly  modified  in  its 
proportions,  the  brain  cavity  and  the  brain  within  it  has 
enormously  increased.  It  is  therefore  not  so  exceptional 
a  thing  as  it  at  first  appears — but  only  an  instance  of  a 


THE  BRAIN  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN       261 

change  more  or  less  widely  exhibited  among  later  animals, 
as  compared  with  their  near  relatives  in  the  past — when 
we  establish  the  fact  that  the  brain  of  the  man-like  apes 
is  much  bigger  than  that  of  lower  monkeys,  and  that  the 
brain  of  man,  who  is  so  closely  similar  in  all  structural 
details  to  those  apes,  has  attained  to  a  bulk  three  times 
that  of  the  ape.-  The  vast  increase  in  the  size  of  the 
brain  in  recent  animals,  as  compared  with  their  closely 
related  representatives  of  an  earlier  period,  is  a  frequent 
and  regular  thing.  It  is  possible  to  make  a  suggestion, 
of  some  plausibility,  as  to  the  meaning  and  value  of  this 
increased  size  of  brain,  which  will  be  found  in  the  next 
chapter. 


CHAPTER    XXIX 
THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN 

JUST  as  man's  brain  is  enormously  larger  than  that 
of  the  ordinary  monkeys,  although  his  general 
make  and  anatomy  is  closely  similar  to  theirs,  so  we  find 
that  the  rhinoceros  has  an  enormous  brain  as  compared 
with  extinct  rhinoceros-like  animals,  the  predecessors  and 
ancestors  of  those  now  living.  The  extinct  Titanotherium 
of  the  lower  Miocene  period  managed  to  carry  on  its 
life  in  an  efficient  way  and  to  hold  its  own  for  a  con- 
siderable period  with  a  brain  which  was  only  one-eighth 
the  bulk  of  that  of  a  modern  rhinoceros,  as  did  other 
animals  in  the  past  with  even  greater  bodies  and  smaller 
brains.  To  get  some  suggestion  as  to  the  significance 
of  this  fact  we  must,  in  however  incomplete  a  way, 
distinguish  some  of  the  main  features  of  the  mental 
processes  which  go  on  in  man  and  animals  and  have 
their  "  seat  "  in  the  brain. 

Descartes  and  other  philosophers  have  held  that 
there  is  a  great  difference  in  the  mental  processes  of 
animals  as  compared  with  those  of  man  in  this,  namely, 
that  man  is  "  conscious,"  that  is  to  say,  conscious  of 
himself  as  "  I,"  and,  as  it  were,  looks  on  at  himself 
acting  on  and  being  acted  on  by  surrounding  existences, 
whilst  (so  it  is  assumed)  animals  have  not  this  conscious- 
ness, but  are  "  automata,"  going  through  all  the  processes 

262 


THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         263 

of  life,  and  even  behaving  more  or  less  as  man  does  in 
similar  circumstances,  yet  without  being  "conscious." 
It  is,  no  doubt,  true  that  many  of  the  complicated  actions 
of  insects  are  carried  on  without  consciousness  of  the 
purpose  or  significance  of  what  they  are  doing.  Such  is 
the  storing  by  certain  wasps  of  smaller  insects  in  care- 
fully-cut chambers,  to  serve  as  food  for  the  wasp's  young, 
to  be  hatched  from  an  egg  to  be  laid  in  the  "cold- 
storage  chamber."  The  mother  wasp  will  go  on  doing 
this  when  she  has  had  the  hind  part  of  her  body  removed 
and  has  no  eggs  to  lay.  This  mechanical  unreasoning 
behaviour  in  insects  is  without  exception,  so  that  we 
must  accept  M.  Fabre's  conclusion  that  they  are,  in  fact, 
unconscious  "  automata."  1  have  already  referred  to  this 
subject  in  an  earlier  chapter,  p.  197. 

We  at  once  place  ourselves  in  difficulty  in  discussing 
this  subject  by  the  use  of  the  words  "conscious"  and 
"  consciousness,"  for,  as  so  often  happens,  they  are  custom- 
arily applied  in  a  vague  and  uncertain  way  to  the  mental 
activities  of  man — without  any  precise  agreement  as  to 
what  is  meant  by  either  of  them.  We  are  all  agreed 
that  a  rational  human  being  may  go  through  a  series  of 
elaborate  actions  apparently  directed  by  purpose  and 
yet  not  be  what  we  call  "  conscious,"  that  is  to  say, 
"  aware  "  of  what  he  is  doing.  This  occurs  in  "  sleep- 
walking "  and  in  "  day-dreaming."  And  again,  we  know 
that  a  man  may  be  evidently  conscious  during  a  certain 
period,  and  yet  forget  directly  afterwards  that  he  has 
been  conscious  and  said  and  done  certain  things  during 
that  period.  This  often  happens  after  "  concussion  of 
the  brain."  It  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  uncertain  whether 
one  ought  to  regard  the  condition  of  a  man  during  that 
obliterated  or  forgotten  period  of  seeming  consciousness 
as  rightly  to  be  described  by  the  term  "  conscious."  And 


264  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  reason  why  one  has  this  doubt  is  that  we  all  recognize 
that  consciousness  without  memory  is  really  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms.  Memory — the  inscription  or  record  in 
our  brains  of  past  experiences — exists  without  conscious- 
ness, as  we  all  know,  by  observation  of  ourselves  and  our 
fellows.  But  the  very  essence  of  consciousness  is  memory. 
We  cannot  even  be  "  conscious  "  of  the  experience  of  a 
single  moment  without  being  also  conscious  of  the 
memory  of  some  previous  condition — however  small, 
temporary,  and  incomplete  the  memory  may  be.  To  be 
conscious  we  must  compare  the  impressions  reaching  the 
brain  at  this  moment  with  the  memory  of  those  of  a  past 
moment.  And  in  lower  animals  and  infants  beginning 
to  be  conscious,  the  "  recollections  "  available  or  accessible 
to  consciousness  may  not  extend  farther  back  than  a 
few  seconds !  If  the  memory  of  past  experiences  of 
which  we  are  aware,  that  is  to  say,  which  are  accessible 
to  consciousness,  is  large  and  extends  over  the  impressions 
of  days,  weeks,  and  years,  then  the  conscious  man  or 
animal  is  in  a  totally  different  position  from  that  of  the 
man  or  animal  who  has  only  a  very  short  and  vague 
memory  of  which  he  or  it  is  conscious.  Thus  it  may  be 
true  that  an  animal  or  an  infant  is  "  conscious  "  and  is 
comparing  the  present  with  the  recollection  of  the  past, 
and  yet  that  the  basis  of  comparison — the  reach  of 
memory  accessible  to  consciousness — is  so  small  as  to  be 
of  little  or  no  significance.  Yet  it  is  the  beginning  of  a 
process  which,  gradually  enlarging  the  access  of  conscious- 
ness to  "  memory,"  passes  through  a  thousand  degrees  of 
increasing  grasp  and  complexity  (due  to  increased  com- 
plexity in  the  microscopic  connexions  of  the  structural 
units,  the  branching  nerve-corpuscles,  which  build  up  the 
brain)  until  it  gives  us  the  "  consciousness  "  of  a  Shake- 
speare, a  Newton,  or  a  Darwin.  The  important  fact  in 
this  consideration  of  what  we  mean  by  "  conscious  "  and 


THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         265 

"  consciousness "  is,  that  memory  is  always  for  most 
lower  animals,  and  during  a  period  of  growth  in  man, 
untouched  by  consciousness,  and  much  of  it  remains  so 
in  all  of  us.  As  the  dawn  lights  up  a  distant  peak 
and  then  another  and  then  a  whole  range  and  spreads 
to  valley  and  plain,  giving  greater  detail  and  variety 
as  the  moments  pass — so  does  consciousness  slowly 
invade  in  the  course  of  development,  whether  of  the 
individual  or  the  species,  the  territory  of  memory.  In 
the  most  man-like  animals  and  the  more  ape-like  men 
the  process  has  not  gone  very  far.  In  the  highest  apes 
consciousness  is  so  limited  in  its  access  to  memory  that 
it  is  but  a  glimmer,  a  mere  rudiment,  of  what  it  becomes 
in  the  modern  races  of  mankind.  We  must  not  overlook 
the  fact  that  it  is  only  when  we  have  to  deal  with  men 
far  advanced  from  the  state  of  primeval  savagery  that 
the  memory  itself  becomes  rich  and  varied.  Observation, 
memory,  and  record — the  vast  tradition  of  taboo,  know- 
ledge, custom,  law,  and  religion  not  inborn  in  our  structure 
but  handed  on  by  spoken  or  written  word — are  developed 
and  increased  by  the  very  fact  that  the  daylight  of  con- 
sciousness has  reached  the  memory  of  them  when  less 
copious  than  they  become  in  later  development,  and  has 
given  them  life-saving  value. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  consciousness — a 
beginning  of  it — exists  in  such  animals  as  dogs  and 
monkeys.  And  it  is  equally  true  that  man  not  only 
exists  for  some  months  after  he  is  born  without  being 
"  conscious,"  but  for  some  years  is  so  only  in  disconnected 
intervals.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  very  incompletely 
"  conscious,"  even  when  adult.  He  is  quite  unconscious 
of  a  great  many  of  his  elaborate  actions.  He  has, 
moreover,  an  "  unconscious  memory  " — that  is  to  say,  a 
memory  of  the  existence  of  which  he  is  not  conscious — 


266  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

which  guides  him  to,  and  in,  the  most  complicated  pro- 
ceedings, and  astonishes  him  when,  by  some  chance,  it  is 
suddenly  revealed  to  consciousness,  or  is  converted  into 
"  conscious  memory,"  when  he  dreams.  Every  man 
finds,  sooner  or  later,  that  he  has  stored  within  him  a 
register  of  things,  persons,  and  events  of  the  existence  of 
which  he  was  totally  unaware.  The  gradual  development 
of  "  consciousness  "  in  higher  ape-like  animals  and  lower 
men,  in  the  course  of  ages,  is  not  the  unparalleled  thing 
which  one  is  apt,  at  times,  to  consider  it  to  be,  since  we 
can  all  remember  the  dawning  of  our  own  consciousness 
and  its  gradual  development.  We  can  also  watch  its 
growth  in  that  most  mysterious  and  wonderful  casket  of 
ancestral  secrets  and  unfathomable  destiny — a  human 
infant. 

Inscrutable  as  is  the  ultimate  nature  of  "  conscious- 
ness," we  may  put  its  further  consideration  aside  on  the 
present  occasion,  since  it  forms  no  actual  barrier  between 
men-like  apes  and  ape-like  men.  On  the  contrary,  the 
higher  apes,  the  lower  living  races  of  men  and  the 
children  of  higher  races,  furnish  us  with  evidence  of 
transition  from  the  lower  condition  of  automatism  to  the 
higher  one  of  self-recognition  or  consciousness  in  its 
most  developed  form.  There  is,  however,  a  leading 
difference  in  the  mental  organization  and  mental  pro- 
cesses of  various  animals,  including  man,  which  is  of 
more  importance  in  the  matter  which  we  are  considering, 
and  is  largely  related  to  the  physical  measurable  difference 
in  the  size  of  the  brain.  The  insects  of  which  Fabre 
says :  "  They  know  nothing  about  anything,"  inherit  a 
nervous  mechanism — a  brain  and  elongated  mass  of 
nerve-cells  and  fibres,  like  our  spinal  cord — which  works 
sharply  and  definitely  like  a  toy-automaton.  Touch 
this  part  and  that  movement  follows ;  excite  the  sense  of 


THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         267 

vision  with  this  visible  thing,  and  such  and  such  a  move- 
ment of  the  limbs  or  jaws  or  other  parts  ensues.  The 
stimulation  of  skin,  eye,  ear,  or  nose  conveys  a  "  message  " 
by  nerves  to  the  "  brain,"  or  centre,  and  immediately  by 
other  nerves  an  "  answer  "  is  conveyed  from  the  brain  or 
centre  in  the  shape  of  an  order  to  this  and  those  muscles 
to  contract,  the  appropriate  nerves  being  set  at  work  and 
exciting  the  related  muscles  to  contraction.  The  number 
of  possible  excitations  and  related  responsive  movements 
thus  arranged  is  numerically  very  great  in  many  animals, 
but  they  are  limited.  They  are  inherited  just  as  they 
are,  and  come  into  action  as  soon  as  the  necessary 
growth  of  the  parts  involved  is  attained,  without  hesita- 
tion or  tentative  trial.  They  are  ready  made.  The 
terms  "  instinct  "  and  "  instinctive  "  should  be  limited  to 
the  action  of  this  inherited  apparatus  or  mechanism. 

All  animals,  including  man,  have  more  or  less  of 
such  an  inherited  instinctive  nervous  apparatus.  Man, 
or  for  the  matter  of  that  an  animal,  may  be  "  conscious  " 
(in  the  sense  of  being  "  aware  ")  of  the  stimulus  given  to 
this  inherited  apparatus,  and  of  its  related  action,  or  he 
may  be  "  unconscious  "  of  either.  The  point  is  that  we 
have  here  the  "  working  "  of  an  apparatus  inherited  in  a 
complete  working  state ;  it  is,  therefore,  what  we  call 
instinctive.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  in  higher 
animals,  and  especially  in  man,  a  vast  number  of  actions 
performed  which  are  not  the  outcome  of  an  inborn  ready- 
made  nervous  mechanism.  On  the  contrary,  these 
actions  are  determined  by  a  mechanism  built  up  in  the 
animal  during  its  individual  existence — a  mechanism 
which  is  formed  by  its  individual  experience  acting  on 
its  nerve-cells,  and  is  the  outcome  of  observation,  com- 
parison, and,  more  or  less,  of  processes  which  we  call 
judgment  and  reasoning.  The  persistence  of  this 


268  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

mechanism  built  up  by  the  individual,  as  well  as  its 
continuous  elaboration  and  development,  is  what  we  call 
"  memory,"  unconscious  or  conscious.  It  is  misleading 
to  speak  of  "  inherited  memory  "  or  "  race  memory,"  and 
to  apply  it  in  any  way  to  the  inherited  mechanisms  of 
instinct ;  the  word  should  be  reserved  in  its  ordinary 
limitation  to  an  individual's  record.  This  new  and 
superior  apparatus  appears  to  require  a  much  larger 
bulk  of  brain-substance  for  its  elaboration  than  that 
which  is  sufficient  for  the  inherited  mechanisms  of 
instinct.  It  works  in  closer  response  to  the  innumerable 
details  of  the  individual  case,  and  so  must  be  much 
more  complicated,  and  we  can  well  believe  must  require 
a  larger  instrument.  Obviously  it  is  an  advantage  to  its 
possessor.  He  (be  he  animal  or  man)  is  provided  not 
with  a  simple  response  suitable  for  the  average  of 
incidents  in  his  life,  but  has,  by  the  "  education  "  due  to 
the  circumstances  in  which  his  individual  life  is  carried 
on,  formed  an  ever-increasing  store  of  special  little 
mechanisms,  giving  the  useful  or  advantageous  response 
which  he  has  himself  discovered  to  be  appropriate  to  this 
or  that  sign,  sound,  colour,  shape,  smell,  touch,  or  what 
not  which  may  assail  his  senses.  In  proportion  as  the 
brain  increases  in  volume  (especially  that  part  of  it 
which  is  called  "  the  cortex  of  the  hemispheres ")  the 
animal  to  which  that  brain  belongs  loses — gets  rid  of — 
inherited  mechanisms  or  instincts,  and  becomes  "educable," 
that  is  to  say,  capable  of  forming  for  itself  new  individual 
brain  mechanisms  based  on  memorized  experience. 

"  Educability  "  is  the  quality  which  distinguishes  the 
brain  of  increased  size.  Dogs  are  more  "  educable " 
than  rabbits ;  monkeys  more  so  than  dogs ;  and  men 
more  so — vastly  more  so — than  monkeys  and  apes. 
The  human  infant  is  born  with  a  few  inherited  mechanisms 


THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         269 

of  "  instinct,"  such  as  that  which  causes  it  to  find  its 
mother's  nipple  and  to  suck  it,  and  to  cling  and  support 
its  own  weight  as  no  full-grown  child  can  do.  It  is 
singularly  free  from  any  large  number  of  inherited 
"  instincts,"  and,  to  its  own  great  advantage,  has,  during 
the  many  years  in  which  it  is  protected  by  its  parents, 
to  learn  everything  and  to  construct  new  brain 
mechanisms — the  results  of  "  education  "  of  the  individual. 
We  here  use  the  word  "  education  "  in  its  proper  and 
widest  sense. 

Thus  we  get  an  indication  of  "  the  reason  why  "  the 
modern  rhinoceros  has  a  brain  eight  times  as  big  as  the 
titanotherium's.  It  is  more  "  educable."  The  ancestors 
of  our  modern  armour-plated  friend  have  been  surviving 
and  beating  their  less  "  educable "  brothers  and  sisters 
and  cousins  through  a  vast  geological  lapse  of  time ;  and 
the  brains  of  the  survivors  have  always  been  bigger,  and 
they  have  become  more  educable  and  more  educated 
until  the  race  has  culminated  in  those  models  of  "  sweet 
reasonableness,"  the  modern  rhinoceroses  !  It  must  be 
confessed  that  this  character  attributed  to  the  rhinoceros 
is  a  matter  of  inference  and  not  of  direct  observation  of 
that  animal  when  under  his  native  sky.  We  do  not 
judge  the  survivor  of  a  fine  early  Miocene  family  by  the 
fury  and  annoyance  he  shows  when  shot  at,  nor  by  the 
stolid  contempt  with  which  he  treats  mankind  at  the 
Zoo.  The  same  signification — "  educability  " — attaches 
to  the  large  brain  of  the  higher  apes ;  and  man's  still 
larger  brain  means  still  greater  educability  and  resulting 
reasonableness. 

In  order  that  natural  selection  and  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  should  have  led  to  this  increased  size  and 
accompanying  educability  of  the  brain,  it  is  necessary  to 


270  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

suppose  that  the  individuals  with  the  more  educable 
brain  as  they  appeared  profited  by  it,  that  is  to  say,  did 
become  more  educated,  and  so  defeated  their  rivals,  and 
survived  and  transmitted  their  increased  size  of  brain 
little  by  little  in  succeeding  generations.  There  is  no 
difficulty  about  admitting  this  supposition  in  regard  to 
the  passage  from  higher  ape-like  creatures  to  later  forms 
having  a  full-sized  brain,  such  as  we  find  in  the 
Neanderthal  man  and  in  some  Australians.  But  we  are 
met  here  by  what  looks,  at  first  sight,  as  a  fact 
inconsistent  with  our  view.  The  obvious  increased 
educability  and  consequent  increased  education  of  lower 
races  of  man  by  the  circumstances  of  their  lives,  places 
them  clearly  enough  in  a  position  of  great  advantage 
over  the  higher  surviving  apes.  But  when  we  compare 
the  actual  mental  accomplishments  of  the  highest 
civilized  races  of  man  with  those  of  big-brained  savages, 
we  find  that  a  large  proportion  of  individuals  in  the 
civilized  races  are  much  farther  ahead  of  the  lower  savage 
races  than  most  of  these  are  ahead  of  the  higher  apes. 
Newton,  Shakespeare,  and  Darwin  are  in  mental  accom- 
plishment farther  away  from  an  Australian  black,  or  even 
a  Congo  negro,  than  these  "  savages  "  are  from  a  gorilla 
or  a  chimpanzee.  Yet  the  difference  when  we  compare 
the  size  and  the  abundance  of  the  convolutions  of  the 
brain  of  the  European  philosopher  and  the  black-fellow 
does  not  seem,  superficially,  to  be  proportionate  to  the 
difference  in  the  mental  performance  of  the  two.  No 
minute  study  of  the  microscopic  differences  in  the 
structure  of  the  two  brains  has,  as  yet,  been  made,  and  it 
is  probable  that  there  is  a  greater  difference  here  than  in 
the  mere  shape  of  the  brain-mass.  It  seems  that  the 
"  educability "  of  the  brain  measured  by  its  size  is  little 
greater  in  the  one  group  of  men  than  in  the  other. 
And  it  is  found — so  far  as  observation  and  experiment 


THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         271 

have  been  carried — that  individual  savages  belonging  to 
races  showing  very  low  mental  accomplishments  in  their 
native  surroundings  are  yet  capable  of  being  "  educated  " 
to  a  far  higher  level  of  mental  performance,  when 
removed  in  early  youth  from  their  natural  conditions 
and  subjected  to  the  same  conditions  as  the  better-cared- 
for  children  of  a  civilized  race,  than  any  of  them  ever 
reach  in  their  own  communities. 

Very  few  really  satisfactory  experiments  have  been 
made  in  this  direction,  but  the  history  of  the  negroes  in 
America  shows  that  the  pure,  unmixed  negro  brain  is 
capable  of  showing  high  mathematical  power,  musical 
gifts  of  the  best,  and  moral  and  philosophic  activities  equal 
to  those  of  the  best,  or  all  but  the  exceptionally  gifted, 
individuals  of  European  race.  It  seems  that  the  large 
educable  brain  gained  by  man  in  a  relatively  early 
period  of  his  development  from  the  ape  has  now 
entered  on  a  new  phase  of  importance.  The  pressure  of 
natural  selection  no  longer  favours  an  increased  educability 
(and  therefore  size)  of  brain,  but  the  later  progress  of 
man  has  depended  on  the  actual  administration  by  each 
generation  to  its  successors  of  an  increasingly  systematized 
exercise  of  that  brain ;  in  short,  it  has  depended  on 
education  itself,  and  on  the  gigantic  new  possibilities  of 
education,  which  have  followed  from  the  development, 
first,  of  language,  then  of  writing,  and  lastly  of  printing, 
together  with  the  accompanying  growth  and  development 
of  social  organization,  the  inter-communication  of  all 
races,  and  the  carrying  on,  by  means  of  the  Great  Record 
— the  written  and  printed  documents  of  humanity — of 
the  experience  and  knowledge  of  each  passing  generation 
of  men  from  them  to  the  men  of  the  present  moment. 

Huxley  agreed  with  Cuvier  in  the  opinion  that  the 


272  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

possession  of  articulate  speech  is  the  grand  distinctive 
character  of  man.  It  was  no  sudden  acquirement,  but 
was  slowly,  step  by  step,  evolved  from  the  significant 
grunts  and  cries  of  apes  in  the  course  of  long  ages,  and 
corresponded  in  its  progress  with  a  parallel  progress  in 
mental  capacities.  Once  attained,  it  led  to  the  formation 
of  vast  educative  products,  namely,  to  oral  tradition, 
to  written  and  then  to  printed  memorials  and  records. 
It. is  not  desirable  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge 
to  speculate  as  to  whether  the  transitional  ape-man 
acquired  the  use  of  fire  before  or  after  he  had  invented 
articulate  speech.  It  probably  was  acquired  very  soon 
after  some  skill  in  the  flaking  of  flints  had  been  attained, 
and  was  of  immense  value,  both  as  a  defence  against 
predatory  animals  and  as  a  means  of  preparing  food. 
Man  probably  learnt  at  a  very  early  period  to  cover 
himself  with  clothing  made  from  the  skins  of  other 
animals,  and  thus  to  tolerate  cold  climates.  The  use 
of  clothing  was  correlated  with  the  diminution  of  his 
natural  hairy  covering.  As  to  the  circumstances  which 
led  to  the  reduction  in  size  of  his  canine  teeth  and  the 
diminution  of  the  projection  of  his  jaws,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  more  than  that  this  was  favoured  by  the  increased 
skill  of  his  hand  and  by  the  use  of  weapons,  and 
probably  was  directly  correlated  with  an  increased 
growth  of  the  brain.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  very 
young  children  still  exhibit  the  ancestral  tendency  to 
bite  when  angry,  and  that  the  use  of  the  teeth  as 
weapons  of  attack  is  more  frequent  among  lower  races 
with  "  prognathous  "  jaws  than  among  Europeans. 

A  definite  habit  of  the  human  infant,  that  of  "  crying  " 
— the  peculiar  spasmodic  howling  of  very  young  children 
— seems  to  be  unknown  in  any  of  the  apes.  I  do  not 
know  what  ingenious  reason  may  have  been  assigned 


THE  MIND  OF  APES  AND  OF  MAN         273 

for  this  difference.  Apes  laugh  under  the  same  circum- 
stances as  do  men,  but  with  less  production  of  sound 
than  is  the  case  with  man  and  the  hyena.  Man  was, 
far  back  in  his  monkey-days,  a  social  and  companion- 
loving  animal,  and  the  fact  that  his  laughing  and  his 
weeping  are  accompanied  by  noise  is  due  to  the  desire 
for  attention  and  sympathy  from  his  friends.  A  great 
difference  between  man  and  apes  is  the  greater  power 
of  expression  of  various  feelings  or  emotions  by  the 
face,  and  also  the  greater  variety  and  significance  in  man 
of  the  gestures  both  of  the  upper  and  the  lower  limbs. 
These  again  are  methods  of  seeking  for  and  gaining 
sympathy  and  co-operation.  Though  not  all  men  and 
not  all  races  in  an  equal  degree  have  mobility  and 
constantly  varying  expression  in  the  face,  yet  it  is  the 
fact  that  the  man-like  apes  which  have  been  studied  in 
life  (the  chimpanzee  and  orang)  have  even  less  variety 
and  range  of  expression  than  the  most  unintelligent 
savages.  Man  seems  to  have  developed  in  an  ever- 
increasing  degree  the  habit  of  watching  and  interpreting 
the  face  and  of  giving  by  it  expression  to  his  emotions 
and  states  of  mind,  thus  establishing  a  ready  means  of 
producing  common  feeling  and  interest  in  a  group  of 
associated  individuals.  This  seems  to  have  led  to  a 
special  appreciation  of  the  features  of  the  face,  and  so 
to  the  exercise  of  sexual  selection,  resulting  in  what 
we  call  "  a  standard  of  beauty  "  in  regard  to  both  shape 
and  expression.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  reduction 
of  the  threatening  canine  teeth  and  projecting  jaw  may 
have  been  furthered  by  sexual  selection  when  once  a  bite 
had  become  less  effective  than  a  blow  with  a  sharp  flint, 
and  when  persuasive  sounds  and  gestures  gained  more 
adherents  than  the  display  of  tusks  by  a  snarl. 

What    I    have   written   in    this    and    the    preceding 
iS 


274  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

chapters,  on  the  differences  and  likenesses  between  apes 
and  man  and  the  probable  steps  of  the  transition  from 
ape  to  man,  may  assist  the  reader  to  form  a  judgment 
as  to  the  importance  of  such  remains  of  extinct  races 
of  men  as  the  skeleton  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  the 
Heidelberg  jaw,  and  the  Piltdown  jaw  and  cranium 
lately  dug  up  in  Sussex,  in  helping  us  to  further 
knowledge  of  those  steps.  It  should  be  definitely  noted 
that  we  have  not  yet  found  any  extinct  animals,  definitely 
to  be  classed  as  apes,  which  come  nearer  to  man  than 
the  chimpanzee  and  gorilla,  although  we  are  led  to 
infer  that  such  creatures  existed,  and  that  thek  fossil 
remains  will  probably  some  day  be  discovered.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  have  in  the  jaw  and  skull  recently 
discovered  in  the  gravel  of  Piltdown,  in  Sussex,  evidence 
of  a  man-like  creature  which  was  in  most  important 
features  more  ape-like  than  any  fossil  man  yet  dis- 
covered. 


CHAPTER    XXX 
THE  MISSING  LINK 

UNTIL  the  discovery  of  the  wonderful  fossil  jaw 
in  the  gravel  of  Piltdown,  near  Lewes  in  Sussex, 
a  favourite  view  as  to  the  probable  relationship  of  man 
and  existing  apes  was,  that  if  you  could  trace  back  the 
pedigree  of  man  and  of  the  chimpanzee  into  remote 
antiquity  far  back  in  the  Tertiary  period — probably  in 
the  early  Miocene — you  would  arrive  at  a  smallish 
creature  with,  proportionately  to  its  size,  larger  jaws 
and  teeth  than  any  modern  man,  yet  smaller  than 
those  of  the  living  man-like  apes,  and  with  a  brain 
not  two-thirds  the  size  of  that  of  the  least  developed 
of  modern  savages,  yet  larger  (in  proportion  to  its 
general  bulk)  than  that  of  the  gorilla,  chimpanzee,  orang, 
and  gibbons.  This  hypothetical  creature  would  repre- 
sent, it  was  held,  the  common  ancestor  of  the  two  great 
"  strains "  or  "  stocks "  one  of  which  in  the  course  of 
gradual  modification  gave  rise  to  our  living  "  humanity," 
and  various  non-surviving  offshoots  on  the  way ;  whilst 
the  other  gave  rise  to  the  company  of  great  apes,  with 
their  tremendous  jaws  and  dog-teeth,  their  small  brains, 
and  great  bony  skull-crests  for  the  attachment  of  huge 
jaw  muscles. 

It  was  insisted  that  the  obvious  and  immediate 
suggestion  when  once  man's  descent  from  animal 
ancestry  was  admitted,  namely,  that  man  has  taken 


275 


276          DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

his  rise  from  the  most  man-like  animals  we  know — the 
great  apes — is  erroneous.  The  public  was  warned  that 
they  must  not  jump  to  such  a  conclusion  ;  it  was  too 
obvious,  too  facile.  The  "  celebrated  ape  of  the  Darwin 
shape,"  which  popular  songs  made  familiar  to  a  wide 
public,  was  declared  to  be  only  a  remote  rustic,  not  to 
say  brutalized,  cousin  of  humanity,  not  in  the  direct 
line  happily !  Our  real  ancestors,  it  was  declared,  were 
mild,  intelligent  little  creatures,  animals,  it  is  true,  but 
animals  which  hastened  to  separate  their  mixed  qualities 
in  two  divergent  lines  of  descent — (i)  the  intelligent, 
mild-mannered  clan  who  ceased  to  climb  trees,  and 
walked  uprightly  on  the  soles  of  their  feet,  whilst  their 
teeth  grew  smaller  and  smaller,  and  their  brains  grew 
bigger  and  bigger;  and  (2)  the  violent  tree-climbing 
members  of  the  family,  who  refused  to  stand  up,  and 
acquired  bigger  and  bigger  jaws  and  teeth,  whilst  their 
brains  remained  small,  their  temper  morose,  and  their 
conduct  violent. 

Old  writers  before  the  days  of  Darwin  had  talked 
and  written  about  the  "  missing  link,"  though  I  cannot 
say  who  first  used  the  term  in  reference  to  a  creature 
intermediate  between  man  and  apes.  Sir  Charles  Lyell 
in  1851  made  use  of  the  term  in  regard  to  extinct 
animals  which  were  intermediate  in  structure  between 
two  existing  types.  A  learned  and  able  writer — the 
Scotch  judge,  Lord  Monboddo — in  the  later  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century  put  forward  a  theory  of  the 
development  of  mankind  from  apes  such  as  the  orang, 
quite  independently  of  any  general  theory  of  "  transform- 
ism  "  or  of  the  progressive  development  of  the  animal 
and  vegetable  worlds,  from  simple  beginnings.  Lord 
Monboddo,  in  the  absence  of  any  knowledge  of  a  "  missing 
link,"  or  of  animals  intermediate  between  man  and  the 


;Condyle 


coronoid 


Recent  A 

European  ^* 


ticuspid 


;  canine 

\  \iacisors 
1  •  i        / 


Eoanthropus   Q 
of  Piltdown   O 


Chimpanzee 


>mitn  Wooclwara.  A  in  A  is  tne  bony  cnm  or  mental  protuberance  ;  in  r.  and  C  it 
.narks  that  part  of  the  jaw  which  would  become  the  mental  protuberance  were  the 
palisade  or  line  of  teeth  retracted  as  in  A, 


278  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

highest  living  apes,  made  reasonable  speculations  (based 
on  wide  study  of  anthropology  and  ancient  philosophy) 
as  to  the  passage  from  the  monkey  to  man.  He  regarded 
man  as  of  the  same  "  species "  as  the  orang-utan. 
He  traced  the  gradual  elevation  of  man  to  the  social 
state  as  a  natural  process  determined  by  "  the  necessities 
of  human  life."  He  looked  on  language  (which  he  said 
is  not  "  natural "  to  man  in  the  sense  of  being  necessary 
to  his  self-preservation)  as  a  consequence  of  his  social 
state.  His  views  about  the  origin  of  society  and  language, 
and  the  faculties  by  which  man  is  distinguished  from 
the  brutes,  are  in  some  interesting  ways  similar  to  those 
of  Darwin.  He  conceived  man  as  gradually  elevating 
himself  from  an  animal  condition  in  which  his  mind  is 
immersed  in  matter  to  a  state  in  which  mind  acts 
independent  of  body.  He  was  ridiculed  and  declared 
to  be  half  mad  by  his  co-temporaries  (among  them 
Samuel  Johnson),  although  he  was,  philosophically,  far 
in  advance  of  those  with  whom  he  came  into  contact. 
Darwin's  views  on  the  "  Descent  of  Man  "  were  met  in 
the  same  contemptuous  spirit  at  first.  But  he  held  a 
much  stronger  position  than  Monboddo,  having  first  of 
all  established  the  general  theory  of  organic  evolution, 
and  having,  further,  a  well-established  mass  of  evidence 
at  his  command  in  regard  to  the  relationship  of  man 
and  apes.  Further,  he  had  that  wonderful  champion, 
Huxley,  to  fight  for  him.  Huxley's  book,  "  Man's  Place 
in  Nature,"  originally  given  as  lectures  which  I,  then  a 
boy,  attended,  placed  the  evidence  of  the  close  relation- 
ship of  man  and  the  higher  apes  in  the  clearest  way 
before  the  public,  and,  indeed,  established  the  identity 
of  the  structure  of  man  with  that  of  the  ape,  bone  for 
bone,  muscle  for  muscle,  and  nerve  for  nerve. 

Still,  there  was   always  a   gap — a  place  unfilled — 


THE  MISSING  LINK  279 

between  the  large-brained,  small-jawed  man  and  the 
small-brained,  large-jawed  ape.  The  link  was  missing. 
It  was  hoped,  when  in  1859  the  human  workmanship 
of  the  flint  axes  found  with  the  bones  of  extinct  animals 
in  our  river  gravels  was  recognized,  that  the  bones  of  the 
men  who  made  the  flint  axes  would  turn  up  alongside  of 
them,  and  that  they  would  show  characters  intermediate 
between  those  of  modern  man  and  the  great  apes.  But 
no  such  human  bones  ever  were  found  in  the  older 
gravels  deposited  as  terraces  along  their  beds  by  the 
rivers  of  Western  Europe.  Human  bones,  and  more 
or  less  complete  human  skulls,  of  a  highly-developed 
modern  type  (the  Cromagnards)  were  found  in  caves 
associated  with  flint  tools  of  a  different  character  to 
those  common  in  river  gravels.  Then  we  heard  a  good 
deal  about  the  strangely  flat  skull-top,  or  calvaria,  found 
in  a  cave  near  Dusseldorf  on  the  Rhine,  associated  with 
the  preaching  of  a  certain  hermit  named  "  Neuman " 
(  =  Neander).  The  valley  was  called  "  the  Neanderthal," 
and  the  skull-top  thus  came  to  be  called  the  "  Neander- 
thal skull."  Some  authorities  regarded  the  Neanderthal 
skull  as  that  of  an  outcast  idiot !  Huxley  studied  it 
minutely,  and  compared  it  to  that  of  Southern  Australian 
black-fellows,  and  held  that  it  took  us  no  nearer  to  the 
apes  than  they  did.  Then  an  unsatisfactory  small  flat  skull- 
top,  together  with  a  long,  straight  thigh-bone,  was  found 
in  a  gravel  in  Java,  and  the  name  "  Pithecanthropus " 
was  applied  to  these  remains.  Still  we  had  got  no 
nearer  to  any  knowledge  of  the  missing  link. 

Of  late  years  we  have,  however,  learnt  a  great  deal 
more  about  the  race  or  species  of  men  of  which  the 
Neanderthal  skull-top  was  the  first  indication.  We 
now  know  that  this  species  of  man  belonged  to  a  period 
older  than  that  of  the  other  prehistoric  cavemen — the 


280  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

artistic  Magdalenians  and  the  bushman-like  Aurignacians, 
which  are  races  of  Homo  sapiens,  not  distinct  species. 
The  older  period  is  called  the  Moustierian,  or  Middle 
Paleolithic,  period,  and  is  marked  by  a  peculiar  type  of 
flint  implement.  It  is  later  than  the  older  river  gravels, 
in  which  big  tongue-shaped  and  almond-shaped  flint 
implements  are  common.  The  two  skulls  and  bones 
from  the  cave  of  Spey,  in  Belgium,  the  Gibraltar  skull, 
and  the  skeletons  and  skulls  of  the  cavern  called  the 
Chapelle  aux  Saints  in  the  Correze  (Central  France),  and 
of  Ferassy,  and  some  neighbouring  localities,  all  belong 
to  this  Moustierian  age  (so  named  after  the  village  "  Le 
Moustier,"  in  Perigord),  and  to  the  peculiar  species 
Homo  Neanderthalensis.1  It  is  also  necessary  to  include 
here  the  more  ancient  man  indicated  by  the  important 
lower  jaw  found  by  Schottensack  near  Heidelberg  (see 
Fig.  25).  The  Neanderman  or  Neanderthal-man  had 
a  low  forehead,  with  overhanging  bony  brow-ridges, 
and  a  depressed,  flattened  brain-case,  which,  nevertheless, 
was  very  long  and  broad  and  held  an  unusually  large 
brain,  measuring  1600  cubic  centimetres,  whereas  the 
modern  European  averages  1450  only  of  such  units. 
He  had  a  powerful  lower  jaw,  with  a  broad,  upstanding 
piece  or  vertical  "  ramus,"  and  no  chin  protuberance. 
Yet  his  teeth  were  identical  with  those  of  a  modern  man. 
His  thigh-bones  were  much  curved,  and  his  arms  a  good 
deal  longer  in  proportion  to  his  legs  than  those  of  a 
modern  man.  He  did  not  carry  himself  upright,  but 
with  a  forward  stoop. 

Now  that  we  know  more  of  him,  we  may  ask,  "  Does 
this  Neanderthal  or  Moustierian   man    fill   the  place  of 

1  For  figures  of  the  skulls  and  flint  implements  of  these  ancient 
men,  see  my  volume,  "  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  First  Series. 
Methuen,  1910. 


THE  MISSING  LINK  281 

the  missing  link  ? "  It  appears  that  he  does  not.  He 
seems  to  have  died  out  without  leaving  any  descendants. 
In  so  far  as  that  his  bony  jaw  sloped  directly  down- 
wards and  backwards  from  the  margin  of  the  sockets  of 
his  front  teeth,  as  in  the  apes,  without  projecting  below, 
to  form  a  chin  protuberance — as  it  does  in  all  races  of 
Homo  sapiens,  on  account  of  the  shrinking  inwards  of 
the  gum-line  or  palisade  of  front  teeth  (incisors  and 
canines) — the  Neanderman  offers  a  certain  approach  to 
the  condition  of  the  apes ;  but  in  other  details  of  shape 
of  the  lower  jaw,  and  especially  in  regard  to  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  lower  surface  of  the  chin  and  the  large  and 
deep  attachments  on  its  inner  face,  for  the  digastric 
muscle  and  certain  muscles  of  the  tongue,  the  bony 
remains  of  the  Neanderman  show  that  he  is  distinctly 
and  altogether  human,  and  not  like  the  higher  apes. 
Moreover,  in  the  very  large  size  of  his  brain  (as  much 
as  1600  units)  the  Neanderman  shows  no  approach  to 
the  relatively  small  brain  of  the  higher  apes  (which 
measures  500  units,  possibly  800  by  exception).  There 
is  in  these  structures  some  argument  for  the  conclusion 
that  the  Neanderman  could  use  articulate  language,  and 
inasmuch  as  the  climate  in  which  he  flourished  was 
extremely  cold,  there  is  ground  for  supposing  that  he 
could  produce  fire  and  clothe  himself  with  skins.  The 
flint  implements  which  are  definitely  associated  with  him 
are  of  more  skilful  workmanship  than  the  earlier,  more 
elaborate,  but  less  cleverly  conceived,  Chellean  and 
Acheuillian  implements.  We  cannot  refuse  to  call  him 
"  man " — not  Homo  sapiens,  we  agree — but  of  the 
"  genus  "  Homo — Homo  Neanderthalensis. 

So  long  as  the  Neanderman  was  the  sole  indication 
of  a  creature  nearer  in  some  features  to  the  apes  than 
are  any  living  or  extinct  races  of  the  species  Homo 


282 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


FIG.  24. 


THE  MISSING  LINK  283 

sapiens,  the  view  was  possible  that  the  two  stocks  which 
to-day  blossom  and  display  themselves — the  one  as  the 
human  race,  the  other  as  the  man-like  apes  (gorilla, 
chimpanzee,  orang,  and  gibbons),  became  separated 
from  one  another  in  long  past  geologic  ages,  and  that 
they  have  undergone  each  an  independent  development 
from  a  creature  so  unlike  both  as  seen  to-day,  that  we 
cannot  speak  of  it  as  a  missing  link  or  a  link  at  all. 
That  view  must  be  considerably  modified  by  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Piltdown  jaw — the  jaw  of  Eoanthropus 
Dawsoni — which  is  not  that  of  a  "  man,"  that  is  not  of 
the  genus  Homo,  but  must,  in  my  judgment,  be  con- 
sidered as  one  of  the  family  Hominidae — a  Hominid,  as 

Description  of  Fig.  24. 

FIG,  24. — Diagrams  of  the  lower  surface  of  the  lower  jaw  of  A,  man;  B, 
the  Eoanthropus  of  Piltdown  (the  left  half  reconstructed) ;  and  C,  the 
Chimpanzee. 

The  jaws  are  supposed  to  be  immersed  in  sand,  so  as  to  conceal  all  but  the 
lower  surface.  The  narrowness  of  the  actual  inferior  margin  of  the  jaw 
in  man,  A,  a,  b,  contrasts  with  the  breadth  and  flatness  of  this  same 
border  in  Eoanthropus,  B,  a,  b,  and  the  Chimpanzee,  C,  a,  b. 

In  the  human  jaw  A  we  see  behind  the  narrow  front  border  a  the  large  semi- 
circular excavations  for  the  attachment  of  the  digastric  muscles  right  and 
left.  They  pass  from  here  to  the  hyoid  bone.  From  the  spine  (double 
in  origin)  between  the  two  digastric  impressions  passes  a  pair  of  muscular 
slips,  called  the  genio-hyoid  muscles,  also  to  the  hyoid  bone,  and  from 
the  pair  of  spines  marked  y  a  pair  of  muscles,  called  the  genio-glossals, 
pass  to  the  tongue.  These  inferior  and  superior  mental  spines  and  the 
digastric  impressions,  much  smaller  in  size  than  in  man,  are  seen  in  the 
chimpanzee's  jaw,  C,  but  are  rubbed  or  partly  broken  and  partly  rubbed 
away  [in  the  Piltdown  half-jaw,  B.  In  the  figures  A  and  C  the  size  of  the 
digastric  impressions  and  mental  spines  is  exaggerated,  but  their  relatively 
much  greater  size  in  man  than  in  the  chimpanzee  is  correctly  given,  and 
this  greater  size  is  connected  with  the  greater  control  of  the  tongue  and 
the  floor  of  the  mouth  in  man,  possibly  connected  with  speech. 

Reference  Letters. — a,  Broad,  upwardly  and  forwardly  sloping  surface,  reduced 
in  man  ;  b,  lower  border  of  the  jaw-bone  ;  x,  front  margin  of  the  digastric 
"impression"  of  the  right  side.  Dig,  digastric  impression  ;  y,  superior 
mental  spine  of  the  left  side  ;  Fr.,  fractured  edge  of  the  Piltdown  jaw, 
and  corresponding  region  in  that  of  the  chimpanzee. 


284  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

we  may  say — a  species  assigned  to  a  new  genus  Eoan- 
thropus  by  Smith  Woodward,  which  is  grouped  with  the 
genus  Homo  and  the  ill-defined  genus  Pithecanthropus, 
to  form  the  family  Hominidae ;  just  as  the  genera  Gorilla, 
Anthropopithecus  (chimpanzee),  Simia  (orang),  and 
Hylobates  (gibbon)  are  grouped  together  to  form  the 
family  Simiidae.  In  Eoanthropus  we  have  in  our  hands, 
at  last,  the  much-talked-of  "  missing  link  "  — the  link  ob- 
viously connecting  man,  the  genus  Homo,  with  the  apes. 

The  immense  importance  of  the  discovery  of  the  jaw  of 
Eoanthropus  by  Mr.  Dawson,  and  of  the  clear  perception 
of  its  distinctive  features  by  Dr.  Smith  Woodward,  is  not, 
as  yet,  sufficiently  recognized.  The  Piltdown  jaw  is  the 
most  startling  and  significant  fossil  bone  that  has  ever  been 
brought  to  light.  The  Neandermen  and  the  Java  skull-top 
are  simply  commonplace  and  insignificant  in  comparison 
with  it  "  What  leads  you  to  say  that  ?  "  I  may  be  asked. 
I  say  so  because  this  jaw  and  the  incomplete  skull  found 
with  it  (Fig.  29)  really  and  in  simple  fact  furnish  a  link — 
a  form  intermediate  between  the  man  and  the  ape.  Some 
fragments  of  the  brain-case  were  found  close  to  the  jaw, 
indicating  a  fairly  round,  very  thick-walled  brain-case, 
holding  a  brain  of  about  I  100  units  capacity — very  small 
for  a  man,  very  large  for  an  ape.  It  is  in  the  highest 
degree  probable  that  the  brain-case  and  the  jaw  belong 
to  the  same  individual.  If  we  were  to  put  the  brain-case 
aside  as  not  certainly  belonging  to  the  same  individual, 
we  should  guess  that  the  owner  of  the  jaw  might  have 
had  a  brain  of  about  this  size — intermediate  between  that 
of  the  larger  apes  and  the  living  races  of  men.1 

1  The  recent  discovery  by  Mr.  Dawson  of  fragments  of  a  second 
skull  of  the  same  character  as  the  first  and  at  the  same  spot  justifies 
a  certain  amount  of  hesitation  in  concluding  that  the  lower  jaw  and 
the  fragments  of  the  first  found  skull  belong  to  one  individual. 


THE  MISSING  LINK  285 

The  astonishing  thing  about  this  half-jaw  from 
Piltdown  is  that  it  is  definitely  and  obviously  more  like 
that  of  a  chimpanzee — especially  a  young  chimpanzee 
— than  it  is  like  that  of  a  man  (see  Fig.  23,  A,  B,  and  C 
and  their  explanation).  If  it  had  been  found  under  other 
circumstances  it  might  quite  well  have  been  described 
as  the  jaw  of  a  simiid — a  large  ape  allied  to  the 
chimpanzee — with  some  unimportant  resemblance  to  a 
human  one.  The  front  part  of  the  bony  jaw  of  Pilt- 
down, instead  of  forming  a  narrow  ridge  below  the  pro- 
truding bony  chin  as  in  man,  is  wide  and  flat;  there 
is  no  protruding  chin.  This  very  important  fact  is  shown 
in  our  Fig.  24,  in  which  the  lower  margin  of  the  lower 
jaw  of  modern  man,  of  the  chimpanzee  and  of  the 
Piltdown  specimen  are  compared.  The  jaw  ended  in 
front  in  a  wall  of  bone  sloping  forward  and  upward 
continuously  from  the  flat  and  broad  lower  surface  of 
the  jaw.  In  this  the  great  incisor  teeth  were  set,  as  in 
all  Simiids.  In  man,  on  the  contrary,  the  front  group  of 
teeth  is  much  smaller  than  in  the  apes,  and  the  semicircle 
formed  by  the  line  of  the  gums  is  much  smaller  than 
the  semicircular  lower  margin  of  the  jaw.  The  semi- 
circle of  teeth  in  man  retreats  (as  it  were)  behind  the 
front  part  of  the  bony  jaw  which  is  left  projecting  far 
in  advance  of  the  line  of  teeth,  forming  the  "  chin  "  or 
"  chin  protuberance."  The  Piltdown  jaw  when  found 
had  only  two  of  the  cheek-teeth  in  place,  as  shown  in 
Fig.  25.  They  were  certainly  very  human  in  pattern 
and  in  the  smoothness  of  their  worn  surfaces.  But  it 
was  found  impossible  to  fill  the  front  part  of  the  bony 
jaw  with  the  missing  teeth  if  they  also  were  fashioned 
according  to  human  pattern.  They  would  in  that  case 
only  reach  along  the  jaw  to  a  distance  of  an  inch  and 
three-fifths  from  the  first  molar  tooth,  whereas  to  fill  the 
space  from  that  tooth  up  to  the  front  end  of  the  bone 


286 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


in  which  the  teeth  are  socketed  they  must  be  big  enough 
to  occupy  a  length  of  two  inches  and  two-fifths  (con- 
sult Fig.  25  and  its  explanation).  Dr.  Smith  Wood- 
ward did  not  hesitate,  in  view  of  the  shape  of  the  jaw 
so  closely  like  that  of  a  chimpanzee,  to  postulate  the 


FIG.  25. — The  Piltdown  Jaw  (shaded)  and  the  Heidelberg  Jaw  (outline  only) 
super-imposed  and  compared  by  placing  the  first  and  second  molar  teeth 
(i  and  2)  of  the  two  specimens  in  exact  coincidence  on  the  horizontal 
line  A,  B.  The  linear  dimensions  of  the  drawings  are  reduced  to  two- 
thirds  of  those  of  the  specimens.  It  is  obvious  that  when  the  front  bony 
part  of  the  Piltdown  jaw  is  completed  with  an  outline  like  that  of  the 
Heidelberg  and  Neander  jaws,  as  shown  by  the  dotted  line  ;«,  the  space 
between  its  molars  and  the  sockets  of  its  front  teeth  cannot  be  filled  by 
teeth  of  the  normal  human  dimensions,  as  it  is  in  the  Heidelberg  jaw. 
As  the  figure  shows,  they  would  stop  short  half  an  inch  from  the  front  of 
the  jaw.  Hence  Dr.  Smith  Woodward  inferred  that  larger  teeth  like 
those  of  a  chimpanzee  were  present  in  this  region  in  the  Piltdown  jaw 
(Eoanthropus). 

former  existence  in  it  of  big  front  teeth — canines  and 
incisors — like  those  of  a  chimpanzee,  and  unlike  those 
of  man,  although  there  was  no  trace  of  them  left  in  the 
specimen.  He  restored  the  jaw,  giving  it  very  much  the 
shape  and  the  teeth  of  a  chimpanzee's  jaw  (Fig.  23,  B). 
That  this  was  a  correct  interpretation  was  proved  a  year 


THE  MISSING  LINK 


287 


later,  in  a  startling,  almost  romantic  way,  by  the  discovery 
by  Mr.  Dawson  and  a  young  French  naturalist  who  were 
resifting  and  searching  the  gravel  at  the  exact  spot  where 
the  jaw  was  found,  of  one  of  the  great  canine  teeth, 
twice  as  big  as  that 
of  any  man  and 
resembling  that  of 
a  chimpanzee  (see 
Fig.  26  and  its  ex- 
planation). There 
was  a  good  deal  of 
hesitation  about  the 
admission  of  the 

FIG.   26.— The   canine 


correctness  of  Dr. 
Smith  Woodward's 
presentation  of  the 
jaw  of  Eoanthropus, 
with  so  close  a  re- 
semblance to  that 
of  a  chimpanzee. 
But  the  careful  con- 
sideration of  the 
specimen,  and  above 
all  the  welcome  dis- 
covery of  the  great 


tooth  of  the  right  side 
of  the  lower  jaw  of 
Eoanthropus  Daw- 
soni,  found  at  Pilt- 
down  a  year  after  the 
discovery  and  de- 
scription of  the  lower 
jaw,  to  which  it  be- 
longs. Drawn  of  the 
natural  size.  To  the 
left  a  back  view,  to 
the  right  a  side  view, 
showing  the  wearing 
away  of  the  surface 
of  the  tooth. 


FIG.  27.  —  Canine 
tooth  of  the  right 
side  of  the  lower 
jaw  of  a  European 
child,  milk  denti- 
tion. This  "first" 
tooth  is  drawn  of 
twice  its  actual 
length  and  breadth, 
which  brings  it  very 
nearly  to  the  same 
size  as  the  canine  of 
Eoanthropus.  It  is 
more  closely  similar 
in  shape  to  the 
canine  of  the  Pilt- 
down  jaw  than  is 
the  canine  of  the 
second  or  perman- 
ent dentition  of 
modern  man. 


ape-like  canine,  has 

now  convinced  every  anatomist  of  the 

truth  of  Dr.  Woodward's   restoration. 

The  jaw  itself  and  the  recovered  canine 

tooth,  as  well  as  the  completely  restored  model  of  the  two 

sides  of  the  lower  jaw  and  of  the  brain -case,  may  now 

be  seen  and  studied  by  visitors  to  the  Natural   History 

Museum.     They  are  placed  in   the  Geological   Gallery. 

I   have  visited  with  Mr.  Dawson  the  gravel  at  Piltdown 

where  the  jaw  and  skull  were  found,  and  have  picked 


288 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


up  there  humanly  worked  flints  of  very  primitive  work- 
manship. I  have  also  followed  with  Dr.  Smith  Woodward 
the  development  and  confirmation  of  his  interpretation  of 
the  jaw. 

I  now  desire  to  insist  upon  the  legitimate  conclusion 
to  be  drawn  from  this  wonderful  specimen.  That  con- 
clusion is  that  the  creature,  indicated  by  it,  is  not  (or  was 


FIG.  28. — The  Piltdown  Jaw  (Eoanthropus)  with  dotted  lines  showing 
the  parts  as  now  "re-constructed"  or  "imagined"  by  Dr.  Smith 
Woodward,  together  with  the  late-found  or  recovered  canine  in  its 
natural  position. 

not  when  it  was  alive)  an  eccentric  cousin  either  of  the 
Simiid  or  of  the  Hominid  stock,  but  represents  a  real 
"  missing  link,"  an  animal  intermediate  in  great  and 
obvious  features  between  the  two  stocks,  and  either  to 
be  described  as  an  ape  which  had  become  man -like  or  as 
a  man  who  still  retained  characteristic  ape-like  features 
— a  truly  connecting  or  linking  form.  Nothing  like  it, 
nothing  occupying  such  a  position,  has  hitherto  been 
discovered.  It  brings  the  focus  of  interest  in  the 


THE  MISSING  LINK  289 

knowledge  of  primitive  man  away  from  the  caves  of 
France  to  the  thin  patch  of  iron-stained  gravel  in  the 
meadow-land  of  the  River  Ouse  as  it  flows  through  the 
Sussex  weald.  These  remains  are  the  first  remains  of  a 
man-like  creature  found  in  a  Pleistocene  river  gravel, 
and  they  exceed  in  interest  any  human  remains  as  yet 
known.  There  is  now  reason  to  hope  that  more  such 
remains  will  be  discovered  in  similar  gravels.1 

It  would  be  highly  important  were  we  able  to 
arrive  at  a  satisfactory  conclusion  as  to  what  age  must  be 
attributed  to  the  Piltdown  jaw  and  skull.  Did  we  know 
their  age  their  true  significance  as  a  link  between  man 
and  ape  would  be  more  easily  estimated.  The  gravel 
in  which  they  were  found  contains  a  handful,  as  it  were, 
of  the  sweepings  of  the  land  surface  of  the  great  Weald 
valley  of  Sussex  of  all  ages  and  periods  since  the 
emergence  of  the  chalk  from  the  ocean  floor — an 
immense  lapse  of  time,  amounting  probably  to  millions 
of  years  !  In  this  sparse  and  inconspicuous  patch  of 
gravel  we  find  fragments  of  teeth  of  mastodon  and 
elephant  and  rhinoceros  of  Miocene  and  Pliocene  age ; 
we  also  find  bones  of  quite  late  kinds  of  mammals  of  the 
Pleistocene  period  ;  we  also  find  two  kinds  of  roughly 
chipped  flint  instruments  belonging  the  one  to  an  earlier 
and  the  other  to  a  later  age.  All  are  mixed  up  together 
in  the  gravel.  When  we  come  to  the  question  as  to 

1  The  human  lower  jaw  found  at  Moulin-Quignon  fifty  years  ago 
by  workmen  who  brought  it  to  M.  Boucher  de  Perthes,  was  dis- 
missed after  much  study  and  examination  by  the  most  competent 
anatomists  at  the  time  as  being  a  comparatively  recent  specimen. 
I  do  not  know  whether  it  has  been  preserved.  I  have  a  flint  imple- 
ment found  with  it  which  was  given  to  me  in  1862  by  M.  de  Perthes 
as  genuine.  It  is  a  forgery,  and  the  jaw  was  fraudulently  buried  with 
it  and  others  in  order  to  deceive  M.  de  Perthes  and  earn  a  pecuniary 
reward  for  the  forgers. 
19 


290 


DIVERSIONS  OP  A  NATURALIST 


FIG.  29. — Complete  Skull  and  Jaw  of  Eoanthropus 
Dawsoni.  One-third  the  natural  diameter.  The 
parts  indicated  by  dotted  lines  are  re-constructed. 
The  rest  is  drawn  from  the  actual  bones  discovered 
at  Piltdown. 


FIG.  30. — The  complete  Skull  and  Jaw  of  a  young 
Chimpanzee.  Drawn  of  one-half  the  natural 
diameter  in  order  to  compare  with  Fig.  29, 
representing  the  adult  skull  of  Eoanthropus, 
reduced  to  about  the  same  size. 


which  of  these 
remains  are  of 
animals  which 
were  the  con- 
temporaries of 
Eoanthropus, 
all  we  can  say 
is  that  Eoan- 
thropus, the 
creature  whose 
jaw  was  found 
at  Piltdown, 
may  have  lived 
as  late  as  the 
latest  or  as 
early  as  the 
earliest  of  the 
animals  whose 
remains  are 
associated  with 
it.  The  Eoan- 
thropus  re- 
mains  are  not 
so  heavily 
mineralized,  it 
seems  to  me, 
as  are  the  frag- 
ments of  teeth 
of  Miocene 
age  found  with 
them.  At  the 
same  time,  we 
have  no  ground 
for  assuming 
that  this  crea- 


THE  MISSING  LINK  291 

ture  made  either  the  earlier  or  the  later  type  of  flint 
implements  found  with  it,  or  was  capable  of  such 
manufacture.  I  see  no  reason  for  supposing,  what- 
ever may  be  the  age  which  we  may  have  to  attribute 
to  Eoanthropus,  that  that  creature  was  capable  of 
flaking  flints  to  a  desired  shape  or  of  making  fire 
or  had  developed  the  use  of  articulate  speech.  Nor 
is  there  any  evidence  to  show  that  the  humanly  cut 
elephant-bone  recently  found  at  Piltdown  by  Mr. 
Dawson  was  cut  by  Eoanthropus.  It  is  more  probable 
that  this  was  done  by  a  more  highly  developed  creature 
of  the  genus  Homo.  In  fact,  the  only  ground  which  at 
present  justifies  the  association  of  Eoanthropus  with  the 
Hominidae  or  human  series  rather  than  with  the  Simiidae 
or  ape  series — derived  from  a  common  ancestry — is  the 
man-like  rather  than  ape-like  size  of  the  brain,  which  we 
must  attribute  to  Eoanthropus  on  the  assumption,  which 
is  at  present  a  reasonable  one,  that  the  half-jaw  and 
the  incomplete  skull  found  near  each  other  at  Piltdown 
are  parts  of  the  same  individual.1 

1  But  see  foot-note  on  p.  284. 


CHAPTER    XXXI 
THE  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK 

IT  is  becoming  more  and  more  certain  that  the 
character  and  quality  of  the  actual  things  —  the 
natural  products — which  we  use  as  food  and  accept  as 
"  diet "  are  far  more  important  matters  in  regard  to 
the  preservation  of  health  than  had  been  until  recently 
supposed.  There  has  been  a  tendency,  resulting  from 
some  of  the  well-ascertained  chemical  necessities  of  the 
animal  body  and  the  equally  well-ascertained  chemical 
composition  of  different  articles  of  food,  to  suppose  that 
all  that  we  have  to  do  in  regard  to  diet  is  to  make 
sure  that  our  food  supplies  us  with  so  much  carbon, 
hydrogen,  nitrogen,  and  oxygen,  with  small  quantities  of 
phosphates,  sulphates,  and  chlorides  of  potassium,  sodium, 
calcium  (lime),  and  iron,  in  a  "  digestible  "  form,  in  order 
to  replace  those  chemical  elements  as  their  combinations 
are  used  up  and  thrown  off  as  waste  by  our  bodies. 
The  general  notions  current  are  little  more  exact  than 
this.  It  is  recognized,  it  is  true,  that  these  elements 
must  be  combined  in  certain  forms  ;  that  it  is  necessary 
to  take  so  much  "  proteid  "  (meat,  gluten  of  flour,  casein 
of  cheese  and  milk,  albumen  of  egg),  in  which  nitrogen 
is  a  leading  component,  foods  which  are  called  flesh- 
formers  ;  and,  further,  that  it  is  necessary  to  take  others 
which  supply  carbon  and  hydrogen  but  have  no  nitrogen, 


292 


THE  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK  293 

namely,  the  hydro-carbons — fat,  butter,  and  oil — and  the 
carbo-hydrates — sugar  and  starch — foods  which  serve  as 
mere  fuel  or  heat-and-force  givers.  The  late  proprietor 
of  "  Truth,"  Mr.  Henry  Labouchere,  once  said  to  me  that 
the  doctors  ought  to  provide  us  with  a  sausage  containing 
in  their  simplest  form  the  necessary  proportions  of  proteid 
and  of  heat-giver  (fat  and  sugar),  and  that  we  should 
abandon  all  "sit-down  "  meals,  pulling  the  necessary  sausage 
out  of  our  pockets  without  any  fuss  or  interruption  to 
our  occupation,  and  eating  a  couple  of  inches  or  so,  three 
or  four  times  a  day  !  Experimental  feeding  of  animals 
(in  menageries,  etc.),  and  even  of  men  (in  prison,  on  the 
march,  and  on  ships),  has  sometimes  taken  very  nearly 
as  simple  a  form  as  this. 

But  we  now  know  (and  many,  indeed,  have  recog- 
nized it  for  many  years)  that  the  nutrition  of  the  animal 
body,  and  especially  of  man's  body,  is  not  so  simple  a 
matter  as  this  method  would  suppose.  It  is  necessary 
not  merely  to  supply  the  proteids,  fats,  starches,  and 
sugars,  in  correct  weight  and  bulk,  but  also  certain 
qualities  and  substances  in  food,  much  more  subtle  and 
difficult  to  estimate  precisely,  which  are  required  in 
order  to  maintain  health.  There  are  elaborate  chemical 
compounds  present  in  really  "  fresh  "  meats  and  vegetables 
which  seem  to  be  absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  keep 
man  (and  some  of  the  higher  animals)  in  health,  and 
not  only  that,  but  it  is  ascertained  that  without  them 
he  cannot  be  properly  nourished,  but  dies !  These 
subtle,  highly  complex  bodies  seem  to  be  present  in 
very  small  quantities  in  good  fresh  food,  and  yet  are 
absolutely  necessary  though  so  minute  in  amount.  The 
failure  of  a  diet  consisting  exclusively  of  tinned  meats 
and  preserved  foods  is  due  as  much  to  this  as  to  the 
nausea  set  up  by  it — of  which  I  have  written  on  a 


294  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

former  occasion  ("  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  Second 
Series,  1913,  p.  171,  "Food  and  Cookery"). 

Let  us  take  an  example.  A  distinguished  medical 
chemist,  Mr.  Gowland  Hopkins,  has  recently  published 
an  account  of  some  experiments  in  which  he  fed  young 
rats  on  a  purely  chemical,  or  "  artificial  "  diet.  He  gave 
them,  in  proper  proportions,  chemically  purified  casein 
or  curd,  starch,  sugar,  lard,  and  salts,  mixed  into  a  thin 
paste  with  water,  of  which  they  had  an  abundant 
separate  supply.  Young  rats  fed  with  abundant  natural 
foods  of  mixed  substances,  such  as  cheese,  bread,  egg, 
bits  of  meat  and  vegetable,  and  water,  grow  rapidly ; 
they  double  their  weight  in  twenty  days.  The  young 
rats  fed  by  Mr.  Hopkins  upon  the  artificial  pure  food — 
though  supplied  with  it  and  taking  it  in  abundance — did 
not  increase  in  weight,  and  most  of  them  died  before  the 
twentieth  day !  The  curious  and  important  fact  was 
established  (by  careful  and  repeated  experiment)  that 
if  a  teaspoonful  of  milk  was  added  to  the  artificial  food 
(less  than  one  twenty-fifth  of  the  solid  matter  of  their 
daily  food)  the  young  rats  did  as  well  as  on  "  natural  " 
food,  doubled  their  weight  in  twenty  days,  and  grew 
up  to  be  strong  and  healthy  rats.  It  was  made  clear 
that  something  was  obtained  by  the  rats  from  the  small 
quantity  of  milk — something  necessary  for  carrying  on 
their  nutrition,  something  the  importance  of  which  was 
not  its  quantity  but  its  peculiar  quality,  which  was 
absent  in  the  artificial  diet,  but  present  in  the  mixed 
diet  of  varied  materials  which  a  young  rat  naturally 
gets.  It  seems  that  some  highly  elaborated  proteid 
is  necessary,  if  only  in  minute  quantity,  to  set  nutrition 
going,  and  that  this  is  furnished  by  the  teaspoonful  of 
milk.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  case  in  which  the  simple 
rough  conclusions  as  to  all  that  is  necessary  in  diet 


THE  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK  295 

being  the  proper    quantities  of  flesh-forming  and  heat- 
giving  substance,  are  found  to  be  erroneous. 

Take  another  case — that  of  the  disease  known  as 
"  scurvy."  The  word  "  scurvy  "  means  "  afflicted  with 
scurf,  mean  and  dirty."  It  was  applied  to  persons 
afflicted  by  this  particular  disease,  and  a  Latin  medical 
word,  "  Scorbutus,"  was  made  from  it  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  which  survives  as  "  scorbutic  "  at  the  present  day. 
Scurvy  was  formerly  very  common  on  board  ship,  in 
beleaguered  armies,  in  prisons,  and  in  other  conditions 
in  which  men's  food  was  limited  to  dried  and  salted, 
often  badly  preserved,  meat  and  biscuit,  or  stale  bread. 
Its  real  causation  is  not  even  now  agreed  upon  :  some 
holding  that  it  was  due  to  actual  poisoning  by  the 
badly  preserved  food,  others  that  it  was  due  to  the 
absence  of  certain  elements — only  to  be  obtained  from 
fresh  meat  or  fresh  vegetables.  Others  think  that  it 
was  caused  by  a  bacterium.  The  victim  of  scurvy 
becomes  much  debilitated,  the  gums  become  spongy 
and  ulcerated,  and  extravasations  of  blood  are  found 
in  all  parts  of  the  body,  often  leading  to  ulceration. 
In  the  old  times  a  whole  ship's  crew  of  the  Navy 
would  be  attacked  by  it,  and  half  or  more  died  before 
a  port  could  be  reached  and  fresh  food  obtained.  It 
was  found  that  the  use  of  fresh  vegetables,  fresh  meat, 
and  the  juice  of  fruits  prevented  its  outbreak,  and  cured 
it  when  once  started.  For  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
it  has  been  held  in  check  by  the  use  of  lime-juice  as  a 
drink  whenever  supplies  of  fresh  vegetables  and  meat 
run  short.  It  has  now  become  so  unusual  a  disease 
that  there  has  been  no  proper  study  of  it  in  the  light 
of  modern  knowledge. 

It  seems    to  be    essentially  the    same    condition   of 


296  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

malnutrition  as  that  which  prevailed  in  cities  and  large 
tracts  of  country  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  occurs 
at  the  present  day  in  Norway,  caused  by  a  diet  of 
badly  salted  fish  and  dried  meat.  This  produced  ulcera- 
tion  of  the  extremities,  allowing  the  leprosy  bacillus  to 
make  its  way  through  the  broken  skin  into  the  tissues, 
and  thus  led  to  the  widespread  occurrence  of  leprosy. 
Whether  bacilli  of  any  kind  were  concerned  in  the  old 
virulent  outbreaks  of  "  scurvy "  on  sailing  ships  must 
remain  uncertain,  but  it  is  highly  probable  that  they  were. 
In  any  case,  it  is  certain  that  the  juice  of  fresh  meat 
or  of  fresh  vegetables  when  taken  set  going  a  better 
condition  of  nutrition  in  the  body,  and  so  acted  as  a 
preventive  and  a  cure  of  scurvy.  Some  writers  suppose 
that  it  was  the  salts,  such  as  citrates  and  lactates, 
present  in  fresh  fruits  and  vegetables  which  were 
effective  in  staying  the  disease ;  but  this  has  by  no 
means  been  proved,  and  is  not,  at  the  moment,  accepted. 
It  is  probable  that  here,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Hopkins's 
rats,  it  was  a  quite  minute  quantity  of  a  readily-destroyed 
proteid  present  in  fresh  meat  and  vegetables  which  was 
necessary  to  keep  the  chemical  processes  of  nutrition  in 
healthy  activity. 

This  view  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  in  recent 
years  a  disease  of  infants  similar  to  scurvy,  and  called 
"  infantile  scurvy,"  has  been  described  by  Sir  Thomas 
Barlow,  and  fully  recognized.  It  is  a  condition  of 
"  malnutrition,"  and  is  accompanied  by  "  rickets,"  and  is 
due  in  the  first  place  to  failure  of  the  mother's  milk,  and 
secondly  to  the  bad  quality  of  the  cows'  milk  substituted 
for  it.  Owing  to  the  danger  of  infection  by  bovine 
tubercle-bacillus  and  the  great  expense  of  "  certified " 
milk  from  specially  selected  cows  (eightpence  a  quart), 
it  is  customary  to  boil  the  milk  given  to  children. 


THE  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK  297 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  good  milk,  freshly 
boiled,  is  satisfactory.  But  the  constant  use  of  sterilized 
milk  and  so-called  Pasteurized  milk,  as  well  as  inferior 
"  watered  "  and  more  or  less  stale  milk,  is  frequently  the 
cause  of  infantile  scurvy.  Something  is  destroyed  in 
the  milk  by  prolonged  heating  which  is  necessary  for 
its  proper  action  as  a  food.  The  addition  to  the  milk 
of  a  small  quantity  of  fresh  meat-juice  or  beetroot -juice 
appears  to  replace  this  destroyed  matter,  and  to  prevent 
malnutrition  and  scurvy.  And  thus  the  babies  are 
rescued  from  "  infantile  scurvy."  Here,  again,  it  is  a 
question  of  the  presence  of  a  minimal  quantity  of  an 
easily  destroyed  proteid,  which  is  necessary  to  start  the 
nutritional  process  and  to  keep  it  going. 

A  very  interesting  case  of  the  unsuspected  influence 
of  minute  quantities  of  such  a  "  proteid  "  body  (that  is, 
a  body  like  casein  and  albumen,  but  higher  in  the 
complexity  of  its  chemical  structure  and  nearer  to  the 
readily  destroyed  chemical  complexity  of  living  matter 
itself)  has  lately  been  discovered.  In  the  East,  especially 
amongst  Chinese  "  coolies "  and  other  people  who  feed 
on  rice,  a  very  troublesome  disease  is  known,  called 
"  Berri-berri."  It  is  chiefly  marked  by  pains  all  over 
the  body,  lassitude,  and  debility,  and  renders  its  victims 
unfit  for  labour,  and  so  causes  great  inconvenience  to 
employers  of  "  Chinese  cheap  labour."  All  sorts  of 
causes  have  been  suggested  for  it.  But  it  has  now  been 
found  that  it  is  due  to  the  feeding  of  the  coolies  with 
"  polished  rice."  This  is  an  inferior  rice,  the  grains  of 
which  have  become  (by  bad,  damp  storage)  rough  and 
powdery  on  the  surface.  The  bad  rice  grain  is  purchased 
by  dealers  and  shaken  up  and  sifted  so  as  to  get  rid  of 
this  dull  surface,  and  is  then  known  as  "polished  rice." 
The  grain  has  lost  its  outer  coat.  It  has  been  found 


298  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

that  domesticated  birds  (pigeons  and  fowls)  fed  on  this 
polished  rice  become  ill  with  symptoms  like  those  of 
"  Berri-berri,"  and  even  die.  And  it  has  been  further 
discovered  that  these  same  birds  can  be  cured  by  mixing 
some  of  the  separated  outer  coat  of  sound  rice  grains 
with  the  "  polished  rice."  The  result  of  this  observation 
on  birds  has  been  applied  to  human  patients  suffering 
from  "  Berri-berri."  It  is  found  that  they  are  rapidly 
cured  by  giving  them  rice  "  outsides  "  to  eat,  and  that 
those  who  are  feeding  on  "  polished  rice "  can  be  pre- 
vented from  acquiring  the  disease  "  Berri-berri "  by 
mixing  rice  "  outsides "  with  the  polished  rice.  The 
study  of  the  subject  has  gone  further. 

A  crystallizable  substance  allied  to  proteids  has  been 
separated  by  the  chemist  in  quite  minute  quantity  (one 
part  by  weight  in  10,000  parts  of  rice)  from  the  outer 
coat  of  rice  grain,  and  is  called  "  vitamine."  It  is  this 
substance  which  prevents  the  "  whole "  rice  grain  from 
causing  "  Berri-berri  "  in  men  and  birds  who  feed  on  it, 
and  it  has  been  shown  experimentally  that  it  prevents 
the  development  of  "  Berri-berri "  when  taken  with 
"  polished  rice,"  and  cures  it  when  administered  to  man 
or  bird  suffering  from  that  disease.  This  case  calls  to 
mind  the  popular  notion  that  the  indigestion  caused  by 
eating  a  "  peeled  "  raw  cucumber  can  be  prevented  by 
eating  some  of  the  dark-green  "  rind  "  or  outside  of  the 
cucumber.  I  do  not  know  that  anyone  has  ever  shown 
that  this  is  a  true  doctrine,  but  it  serves  as  an  illustration 
of  what  has  been  demonstrated  in  the  case  of  rice  grains 
and  "  Berri-berri."  Here,  then,  again  we  have,  in  the 
case  of  rice,  a  minute  quantity  of  a  substance  naturally 
present  in  an  article  of  food  when  taken  in  its  natural 
normal  condition,  which  is  destroyed  and  removed  by 
the  ignorant  manipulation  of  man,  although  necessary 


THE  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK  299 

and  essential  if  that  article  of  food  is  to  serve  as  healthy 
diet.  In  this  case  (as  so  many  others)  it  is  the  attempt 
of  greedy  traders  to  make  money  by  giving  to  a  worth- 
less spoilt  article  the  appearance  of  the  regular  and 
valuable  article,  which  has  led  to  disease  and  disaster. 
It  becomes  more  and  more  obvious  that  the  selection  of 
articles  of  food  and  the  whole  question  of  what  is  a 
healthy  diet,  are  not  such  simple  things  as  is  often 
supposed.  Here,  as  in  everything  we  do,  we  must 
either  keep  to  the  long-established  habits  sanctioned  by 
Nature,  or  we  must  have  full  and  detailed  knowledge  to 
guide  us  in  new  ways,  so  that  we  shall  not  recklessly 
blunder  by  ignorance  into  disaster  and  death.  The 
"  feeding "  of  man  and  of  his  herds  requires  new  and 
continued  investigation.  Old  convictions  and  traditions 
in  these  matters  must  not  be  lightly  thrust  aside  by  the 
possessor  of  that  little  knowledge  which  is  a  dangerous 
thing.  Meanwhile,  for  the  civilized  man  the  advice 
of  Pasteur's  pupil  and  successor,  the  late  Professor 
Duclaux,  is  noteworthy :  "  Do  not  eat  much,  but  eat 
many  things ;  there  is  safety  in  variety,  danger  in 
uniformity." 

When  we  reflect  on  the  importance  of  these  small 
quantities  of  easily  destroyed  constituents  in  natural 
foods,  we  begin  to  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  securing  a 
pure  milk-supply  which  shall  be  at  the  same  time  a 
nourishing  and  a  healthy  one.  The  sterilizing  of  milk 
by  heat  before  it  is  sold  as  an  article  of  diet  seems  to  be 
desirable  in  order  to  destroy  the  bovine  tubercle-bacillus 
which  may  be  there  and  the  other  injurious  microbes  due 
to  the  dirty  conditions  in  which  the  cow  is  kept  and  the 
milkers  keep  themselves.  The  heating  of  the  milk  for 
some  twenty  minutes  to  a  temperature  below  that  of 
boiling  water  seems  to  be  the  best  plan.  For  infants, 


300  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

meat-juice  or  beet-juice  may  then  be  added  to  the  milk 
when  used,  and  so  "  infantile  scurvy  "  be  avoided.  Con- 
sumers (older  children  and  adults)  who  are  taking  other 
foods  do  not  need  this  additional  precaution.  Milk  thus 
"  Pasteurized  "  is  the  safest  milk. 

But  there  is  a  very  serious  precaution  to  be  observed 
in  all  cases.  In  such  Pasteurized  milk  the  lactic  organism 
or  ferment  usually  present  is  destroyed.  Consequently 
the  milk  does  not  "  go  sour  "  by  the  growth  of  the  lactic 
ferment.  This  is  no  advantage,  but  a  serious  danger. 
For  the  lactic  "  souring  "  of  milk  is  not  injurious,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  a  safeguard.  It  actually  prevents  the 
growth  in  the  milk  of  other  really  harmful  and  deadly 
germs.  Thus  when  the  lactic  germ  is  not  there,  but 
killed  by  heat,  these  other  deadly  germs  get  their  chance. 
A  fly  or  other  dirt-carrier  brings  to  the  sterilized  milk 
"  putrefactive  "  bacteria  and  such  germs  (terribly  common) 
as  those  of  "  green  "  or  infantile  diarrhoea,  not  to  mention 
others.  If  the  milk  had  been  unsterilized  and  gone  sour 
by  the  growth  of  the  lactic  ferment,  these  more  danger- 
ous germs  could  not  have  flourished  in  the  acid  conditions 
produced  by  it.  The  danger  of  Pasteurized  milk  is  that 
if  kept  more  than  a  few  hours  at  the  ordinary  temperature 
of  a  dwelling-room,  and  not  carefully  protected,  it  may 
be  a  very  ready  means  of  communicating  infantile 
diarrhoea  and  other  intestinal  disease.  It  would  therefore 
seem  to  be  desirable  to  restore  to  the  Pasteurized  milk  a 
small  quantity  of  a  pure  culture  of  lactic  germs.  This 
could  be  easily  done.  The  milk  would  have  had  its 
tubercle-bacilli  and  others  removed  by  heat,  and  then, 
after  cooling,  it  would  receive  a  very  few  lactic  germs  as  a 
protective  in  case  it  should  be  kept  by  the  consumer 
long  enough  to  get  infected  by  the  bacteria  of  intestinal 
disease.  It  is  imperative  that  good,  nourishing  milk,  free 


THE  SUPPLY  OF  PURE  MILK  301 

from  germs  of  tubercle  and  of  diarrhoea,  shall  be  access- 
ible to  the  millions  in  this  country  who  cannot  afford  to 
pay  eightpence  a  quart  for  it.  It  is  a  difficult  demand 
to  meet.  What  is  said  above  explains  the  difficulty, 
and  suggests  an  attempt  to  overcome  it. 


CHAPTER    XXXII 
CHRISTMAS  TREES  AND  OTHER  PINE  TREES 

WHEN  winter  grips  our  land  it  is  fitting  to  dis- 
course about  the  sweet  and  refreshing  pine  trees 
which  are  especially  associated  in  northern  climes  with 
the  celebration  of  Christmas.  The  delicious  perfume 
which  they  diffuse  is  destructive  both  of  microbes  and 
noxious  insects,  whilst  they  are  always  linked  in  our 
minds  with  glorious  mountain-sides  or  breezy  moorland, 
or  the  delightful  sand  dunes  and  grey  rocks  of  the  sunny 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  decoration  of  trees 
on  days  of  festival  and  joyful  celebration  with  garlands, 
lamps,  and  gifts  is  an  immemorial  custom  of  mankind, 
and  it  is  probably  merely  the  accident  of  its  being  con- 
venient in  shape,  evergreen,  cleanly,  and  sweet-smelling 
that  has  led  to  the  selection  of  the  common  spruce  as 
the  "  Christmas  tree."  It  was  not  until  the  reign  of 
Queen  Victoria  that  the  custom  of  bringing  a  young 
spruce  fir  into  the  house,  growing  in  its  special  flower- 
pot, and  then  decorating  it  and  making  it  the  centre 
of  a  children's  festival,  became  established  in  England. 
The  25th  of  December  was  celebrated  in  pre-Christian 
times  in  Northern  Europe  as  the  beginning  of  the  New 
Year,  and  it  was  only  after  much  opposition  adopted  by 
the  Roman  Church  in  the  sixth  century  as  a  feast  day 
in  celebration  of  the  birth  of  Christ.  The  Puritans 

rejected  it  as  idolatrous,  but  its  observance  was  restored 

302 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  303 

by  Charles  II.  In  Scotland  it  is  still  ignored,  and  in 
Latin  countries  presents  (strence,  or  in  French  les 
etrennes)  are  given  on  New  Year's  Day  and  not  on 
Christmas  Day. 

The  spruce  is  in  our  part  of  the  world  the  commonest 
of  the  great  series  of  cone-bearing  trees  which  we  speak 
of  as  pines  and  firs.  Botanists  call  this  series  or 
"  natural  order "  of  trees  the  Coniferae,  in  reference  to 
the  fact  that  their  flowers  are  cone-shaped  growths  con- 
sisting of  scales  set  in  a  spiral  order  around  a  central 
stem.  Each  scale  is  more  or  less  overlaid  by  a  second 
small  scale  or  "  bract "  (sometimes  evanescent),  and  on 
the  inner  surface  of  the  deeper  scale  the  naked  ovules 
are  carried  in  the  female  cones,  whilst  the  pollen-pro- 
ducing growths  are  similarly  carried  by  the  smaller  and 
more  delicate  male  cones.  The  ovules  are  exposed 
nakedly,  and  are,  therefore,  in  a  more  primitive  condi- 
tion than  those  of  ordinary  flowering  plants,  in  which 
they  are  overgrown  and  enclosed  by  the  modified  leaves 
which  form  the  "  pistil  "  or  central  part  of  the  flower. 
Hence  the  conifers  are  called  flowering  plants  with 
"  naked  seeds,"  or  Gymnosperms,  whilst  the  rest  of 
the  flower-bearing  plants  are  called  plants  with  "  covered 
seeds,"  or  Angiosperms.  The  cones  are  at  first  green 
(sometimes  purple),  and  become  brown  as  they  ripen. 
The  small  loosely-packed  male  cones,  less  familiar  to 
most  people  than  the  solid  and  large  seed-bearing  cones, 
are  often  of  a  fine  crimson  colour  when  young,  and  when 
ripe  of  a  bright  chestnut  brown,  but  the  cones  of 
pine  trees  are  with  few  exceptions  (the  Douglas  fir  is 
one)  not  brilliantly  coloured  nor  set  out  to  attract  the 
eye,  as  are  the  flowers  of  most  flowering  plants.  Though 
a  young  branch  carrying  its  groups  of  green  "  needles," 
rich  brown  male  cones,  silver-white  hairs  and  swelling 


304  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

seed-cones  (Fig.  31)  presents  a  very  fine  harmony  of  diverse 
colours,  yet  they  are  not  constructed  so  as  to  attract 
the  visits  of  insects.  They  do  not  require  the  services 
of  insects  to  carry  the  pollen  of  the  male  cones  to  the 
ovules  of  the  female  cones.  They  produce  an  enormous 
amount  of  pollen,  which  falls  in  showers  of  yellowish- 
white  dust,  and  is  blown  by  the  wind,  far  and  wide,  on 
to  the  female  cones.  Hence  it  is  that  though  the  cones 
are  "  flowers,"  and  the  pine  trees  are  flowering  plants, 
yet  they  have  none  of  the  beautiful  shapes  and  colours 
which  we  associate,  as  a  rule,  with  flowers — shapes  and 
colours  due  to  the  modification  in  the  latter  of  the  leaves 
called  "  petals "  which  are  set  with  attractive  brilliancy 
around  the  stamens  and  pistil.  The  conifers  are  an 
ancient  race,  dating  from  geological  ages  before  the 
chalk,  when  plants  had  not  "  learnt "  (as  they  subse- 
quently did)  to  colour  their  flowers  and  to  provide  nectar 
so  as  to  ensure  the  visits  of  insects  and  the  carriage  by 
them  of  their  pollen  from  plant  to  plant.  Even  in  the 
group  of  plants  with  coloured  flowers  there  are  trees 
which  have  abandoned  the  production  of  colour  in  their 
flowers,  and  like  the  conifers  depend  upon  the  wind  to 
carry  their  pollen  instead  of  seeking  the  aid  of  insects. 

The  word  "pine"  is  of  Latin  origin,  and  belongs 
properly  to  the  South  of  Europe ;  the  word  "  fir "  is 
Teutonic,  and  is  originally  applied  to  the  same  trees  in 
the  North  of  Europe  as  those  to  which  "  pine  "  is  applied 
in  the  South.  It  is  of  no  use  trying  to  determine  what 
conifers  should  rightly  be  called  "  firs "  or  "  fir  trees," 
and  which  "  pines  "  or  "  pine  trees."  There  is  complete 
confusion  and  indifference  nowadays  in  the  use  of  those 
words,  and  the  botanists  have  in  the  past  added  to  the 
confusion  by  their  changing  and  uncertain  use  of  the 
names  Pinus  and  Abies.  A  definite  system  of  naming 


CHRISTMAS  TREES 


305 


c. 


FIG.  31. — A  fertile  branch  of  the  Scots  Fir,  Pinus  sylvestris,  showing  the 
small  male  cones,  m.c.,  and  the  larger  female  cones,  f.c.,  also  the  foliage 
needles  grouped  in  pairs.  Drawn  of  two-thirds  the  natural  size,  linear. 

The  lower  figures  relate  to  the  male  cone,      a,  A  ripe  male  cone,  slightly 
enlarged  ;  b,  inner  face  of  one  of  the  scales  of  the  male  cone,  showing  the 
paired    pollen-producing    or   stamen-like    patches  —  much    magnified ; 
c,  outer  face  of  the  same  scale. 
20 


306  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

has  now  been  agreed  upon,  and  we  must,  in  order  to 
understand  one  another  in  talking  about  conifers,  strictly 
accept  and  adhere  to  the  names  at  this  moment  assigned 
to  them  by  the  common  consent  of  botanical  authorities. 

The  Scots  fir  is  Pinus  sylvestris.  "  Pinus "  is  the 
name  of  a  genus  of  conifers,  and  includes  many  species 
besides  sylvestris,  our  own  familar  Scots  fir,  which 
is  often  now  spoken  of  by  the  queer,  ill-sounding  title 
of  Scotch  pine.  The  Norway  spruce  or  pine,  called 
often  "  common  spruce,"  also  "  the  spruce  fir,"  and 
"Christmas  tree,"  is  the  "  Picea  excelsa"  of  correct 
botany.  There  are  several  other  species  of  the  genus 
Picea.  A  third  well-known  conifer,  the  silver  fir,  is 
called  by  botanists  "  Abies  pectinata  " ;  there  are  many 
other  species  of  Abies.  Although  it  has  such  a  familiar, 
sweet-sounding  name,  the  silver  fir  is  not  a  common 
tree  in  England,  where  it  was  introduced  only  three 
hundred  years  ago.  It  will  not  thrive  at  Kew  Gardens. 
It  is  the  common  forest-making  fir  of  the  centre  of 
France  and  of  much  of  the  mountainous  country  of 
Southern  Europe,1  but  it  is  rarely  to  be  seen  in  the 
Swiss  mountains  (only  in  certain  relatively  low-lying 
valleys).  The  pine  forests  of  those  mountains  are 
almost  exclusively  formed  by  the  spruce,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  a  few  Scots  firs  and  larches,  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  Arolla  fir  or  pine. 

1  It  is,  according  to  botanical  authorities,  from  the  wood  of  the 
silver  fir,  which  still  grows  on  Mount  Ida,  that  the  Greeks,  as  related 
by  Virgil,  constructed  the  Trojan  horse. 

"  Instar  montis  equum,  divina  Palladis  arte 
^dificant,  sectaque  intexunt  abiete  costas  ! 
(A  horse  of  mountain  size  they  build 
By  art  divine  of  Pallas  helped 
And  weave  its  ribs  with  planks  of  fir). 

ii.  15. 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  307 

The  common  larch  is  a  fourth  common  kind  of  conifer. 
It  is  distinguished  from  other  pine  trees  which  flourish  in 
England  by  shedding  its  needles  so  as  to  leave  itself 
bare  in  the  winter.  It  is  called  "  Larix  Europcea,"  and  is 
closely  related  to  the  cedars.  It  was  introduced  into 
England  in  1629. 

Man  by  his  migrations  and  trading  journeys  has 
had  far  more  to  do  with  the  introduction  and  spreading 
of  trees,  and  even  of  small  flowering  plants,  from  one 
country  to  another,  than  is  commonly  suspected.  It 
appears  that  of  the  trees  I  have  already  mentioned  only 
the  Scots  fir  is  really  native  to  these  islands.  Even  the 
Christmas  tree,  the  common  spruce,  was  introduced  from 
the  Continent  by  invading  man  after  we  had  become 
separated  by  the  sea  from  the  mainland  of  Europe. 
The  introduction  took  place,  it  seems,  in  very  early 
times,  and  there  is  no  record  of  the  event.  Peat 
deposits  have  been  studied  and  their  age  estimated, 
and  it  is  found  that  in  those  of  the  age  of  the  neolithic 
men  there  are  no  remains  of  spruce,  but  only  of 
Scots  firs! 

The  cpnifers  are  remarkable  not  only  for  their 
"  cones,"  but  for  the  needle- like  shape  which  their  leaves 
often  present,  whence  the  latter  are  spoken  of  simply  as 
"  needles."  Conifers  are  also  distinguished  by  the  fine 
aromatic  oils  which  they  produce  in  these  needles  and 
in  their  wood,  which  serve  them  as  a  protection  against 
browsing  animals,  although  to  man  their  perfume  is 
agreeable.  In  the  Tyrol,  near  Cortina,  I  remember  a 
little  shop  in  the  pine  woods  where  you  could  buy  the 
odorous  essences  extracted  from  the  different  species 
of  conifers  growing  around,  and  each  species  had  its 
own  special  perfume.  Besides  these  aromatic  oils,  the 


308  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

conifers  produce  peculiar  resins,  such  as  colophon,  amber, 
kauri  gum,  Canada  balsam,  Dammar  varnish,  and  others, 
and  also  various  qualities  of  turpentine,  tar,  and  pitch. 

I  have  mentioned  the  three  commonest  conifers 
which  flourish  in  England,  and  have  pointed  out  that 
only  one  of  them — the  Pinus  sylvestris,  or  Scots  fir — 
is  really  indigenous  to  our  islands.  It  extends  all  over 
Europe,  except  the  extreme  south  and  west,  and  right 
through  Russian  Asia.  In  the  Alps,  at  the  height  of 
3000  to  5000  feet,  it  is  represented  by  a  dwarf  re- 
cumbent species,  the  Pinus  montana,  or  P.  pumilio. 
There  is  another  really  native  conifer  in  Britain  which 
belongs  to  a  peculiar  family,  that  of  the  cypresses. 
This  is  the  common  juniper,  called  by  botanists  "  Juni- 
perus  communis,"  a  mere  shrub,  but  still  a  beautiful 
little  thing,  noticeable  for  the  fine  perfume  of  its  leaves, 
which  is  used  for  flavouring  "  gin,"  and  for  its  peculiar 
minute  and  compact  berry-like  cones.  It  has  a  very  wide 
range,  flourishing  throughout  the  north  temperate  region 
of  Europe,  Asia,  and  America.  There  is  another  juniper 
well  known  in  England,  namely,  the  Savin  (Juniperus 
Sabina).  This  is  not  a  native,  but  was  introduced 
before  1548.  It  has  powerful  medicinal  properties. 

When  we  spend  our  holidays  abroad  in  Switzerland 
or  on  the  Mediterranean  shores  we  come  across  many 
other  flourishing,  well-established  kinds  of  pines,  firs,  and 
cypresses.  And  we  need  not  leave  England  in  order 
to  make  acquaintance  with  a  very  large  number  which 
have  been  introduced  from  abroad  into  plantations  and 
parks,  and  grow  under  favourable  circumstances,  but 
cannot  be  said  to  have  established  themselves  as 
naturalized  inhabitants.  Among  those  more  anciently 
introduced  is  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  ;  of  later  introduction 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  309 

we  have  the  Indian  cedar  or  deodar,  and  the  Weymouth 
pine,  Pinus  Strobus,  a  North  American  tree.  Still  later  a 
veritable  crowd  of  American,  Himalayan,  Japanese,  and 
Chinese  pine  trees  of  one  kind  and  another  have  been 
introduced  by  dealers  and  their  rich  clients,  the  owners 
of  park  plantations,  so  that  it  is  now  far  easier  to  see 
in  the  grounds  around  great  English  houses  all  sorts  of 
pine  trees  from  remote  regions  of  the  earth  than  the 
British  species,  or  those  interesting  European  kinds  which 
have  some  kind  of  community  with  them,  and  are,  at 
any  rate,  objects  of  interest  to  the  naturalist  whose 
familiar  ground  is  that  of  Europe.  Most  people  are 
utterly  perplexed  by  the  number  of  kinds,  and  do  not 
know  one  from  another. 

In  order  to  discuss  a  little  further  in  detail  the 
commoner  kinds  of  Coniferae  besides  those  which  may  be 
considered  as  truly  British,  and  have  been  mentioned 
above,  we  must  take  a  glance  at  the  plants  related  to 
the  natural  order  Coniferae,  and  then  at  the  divisions  of 
that  natural  order  into  families  and  tribes.  The  Coniferae 
are  an  order  of  the  great  class  of  Gymnosperms — one  of 
two  classes  into  which  the  flowering  plants  or  Phanero- 
gams are  divided,  the  other  being  (as  explained  above)  the 
Angiosperms  (palms,  grasses,  lilies,  and  all  our  ordinary 
trees,  shrubs,  and  flower-bearing  herbs).  The  orders 
included  under  "  Gymnosperms  "  are :  First,  an  order,  the 
Pterido-spermia,  comprising  certain  remarkable  fossil  forms 
connecting  them  with  ferns  ;  second,  the  order  Cycadeae, 
an  ancient  group,  of  which  only  a  dozen  or  so  kinds 
survive  to  this  day ;  third,  the  order  Gnetacese,  including 
Wellwitch's  strange  African  plant  and  the  little  European 
Ephedras,  resembling  the  plants  called  horse-tails ; 
fourth,  the  order  of  the  Gingko  trees  of  Japan,  called 
also  Salisburiae,  with  leaves  like  those  of  the  maiden's- 


3io 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


hair  fern.  They  and  one  or  two  others  are  survivors  of 
an  important  extinct  group  (the  Gingkoaceae),  which  we 
know  by  their  fossil  remains  flourished  in  great  numbers 
before  the  chalk  period.  Then  we  have  :  fifth,  the 

order  Taxaceae  (or 
yew  trees) ;  and,  sixth, 
the  order  Coniferae  (or 
cypresses,  pines, 
cedars,  and  firs).  The 
first  four  orders, 
though  very  interest- 
ing,  exceptional 
plants  we  will  leave 
aside,  as  they  do  not 
come  very  near  to  the 
Coniferae.  The  order 
of  yew  trees,  Taxaceae, 
however,  does  come 
close  to  the  Coniferae, 
and  sometimes  they 
are  grouped  together. 

There  is  one  truly 
native  British  ex- 
ample of  the  order 
Taxaceae — the  com- 
mon yew  tree,  called 
"  Taxus  baccata  "  by 
botanists.  Its  leaves 
are 


FIG.  32. — The  Common  Yew,  Taxus  baccata. 

a,  Part  of  a  branch  (of  the  natural  size)  showing 
the  needle-like  leaves  in  two  opposite  rows, 
and    three   fruits.      The   cup-like  growth 
which  is  seen  surrounding  the  naked  seed 
is  called  an  "  aril."     It  is  of  a  fine  crimson 
colour,  soft,  juicy,  and  sweet-tasting. 

b,  The  young  cone-like  growth  or  "  flower  "  of 
the  yew,  from  the  end  of  which  one  seed  and 
its  cup-like  aril  will  develop.     Magnified. 

c,  The  seed  surrounded  by  the  incompletely 
grown  aril  or  cup  at  a  later  stage.     Less 
highly  magnified  than  b. 


needles,"     like 

those  of  most  conifers,  but  much  flattened,  and  it  has  the 
sombre  colour  and  the  general  aspect  of  some  of  the  larger 
conifers.  But  its  ovule-bearing  flower,  although  it  appears 
when  young  (Fig.  32,  b)  to  be  built  up  by  several  scale- 
like  leaves  like  the  cone  of  a  conifer,  does  not  continue  in 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  311 

that  form,  and  ceases  to  have  any  resemblance  to  a  "  cone." 
Only  the  terminal  leaf  or  scale  of  the  group  enlarges 
and  develops  an  ovule,  and  around  this  grows  an  open 
cup-like  protection  of  the  most  delicate  crimson  colour 
— soft,  sweet,  and  luscious  (Fig.  32,  c  and  a).  It  is  as  big 
as  a  pea,  and  is  largely  eaten  by  birds  and  by  schoolboys  ! 
Yew  trees  have  from  time  immemorial  been  planted  and 
cared  for  in  Great  Britain,  since  its  wood  was  formerly 
greatly  valued  for  making  archers'  bows.  Wild  groves 
of  yew  trees,  once  existing,  have  been  largely  destroyed. 
Some  of  the  finest  are  on  the  chalk  hills  of  Surrey, 
where  the  yew  flourishes  alongside  of  the  juniper.  Very 
fine  yew  trees  are  often  found  growing,  one  or  two 
together,  in  village  churchyards,  where  they  have  been 
planted  in  remote  times,  just  as  cypress  trees  are  to-day 
planted  in  cemeteries  in  the  South  of  Europe.  Yew 
trees  with  trunks  from  30  to  50  feet  in  girth  at  I  2  feet 
from  the  ground  are  known,  and  it  is  probable  that  some 
are  as  much  as  a  thousand  years  old. 

Many  varieties  of  the  yew  tree  occur  in  these  islands. 
A  celebrated  variety  is  that  in  which  the  branches  are 
all  directed  upwards  rather  than  horizontally — a  frequent 
form  of  variation  in  trees  which  more  usually  have 
spreading,  nearly  horizontal  branches.  This  variety  is 
called  "  fastigiate  "  (the  "  fastigiate "  condition  of  the 
common  cypress  tree  is  the  one  usually  cultivated, 
although  there  are  common  varieties  with  spreading 
branches),  and  in  the  case  of  the  fastigiate  yew  it  is 
accompanied  by  a  variation  in  the  disposition  of  the 
needles  or  leaves.  Instead  of  being  carried  right  and 
left  in  a  single  row  on  each  side  of  the  young  branches, 
as  is  usual  with  yews,  the  needles  are  set  all  round  the 
branch  in  spiral  order  (as  they  are  in  many  conifers). 
This  variety  was  found  growing  wild  in  Co.  Fermanagh, 


312  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Ireland,  nearly  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  a  couple  of  trees 
of  it  were  then  cultivated  at  Florence  Court  by  the  Earl 
of  Enniskillen  of  that  date.  Thousands  of  cuttings  have 
been  sent  from  one  of  these  two  original  trees,  which  is 
still  vigorous  (I  saw  it  some  thirty  years  ago  at  Florence 
Court)  all  over  the  world.  It  is  known  as  the  "  Florence 
Court  yew,"  or  "  Irish  yew,"  and  is  commonly  planted  in 
gardens.  But  all  are  from  cuttings  of  this  one  original 
tree,  or  cuttings  of  its  cuttings,  and  all,  like  their  parent, 
are  female  berry-bearing  trees,  for  the  male  and  female 
flowers  grow  on  separate  trees  in  the  yew. 

The  foliage  of  the  yew  contains  aromatic  and  other 
chemical  products,  which  render  it  poisonous  to  cattle. 
It  is  said  not  to  be  poisonous  when  quite  fresh,  but  only 
some  time  after  cutting.  This,  however,  needs  confirma- 
tion. The  yew  makes  an  admirably  compact  and  im- 
pervious screen  when  grown  as  a  hedge,  and  has  been 
largely  used  in  gardens  for  this  purpose.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  it  was  the  custom  to  clip  yew  hedges,  or  small 
yew  trees,  into  all  sorts  of  strange  shapes,  birds,  beasts, 
and  crowns.  The  name  "  topiary "  is  given  to  this 
fanciful  work.  The  popularity  of  the  yew  in  the  gardens 
of  those  days  is  due  to  the  small  number  of  our  native 
evergreen  shrubs  and  trees ;  they  are  yew,  Scots  fir, 
juniper,  holly,  privet,  ivy,  butcher's  broom,  box  (a  doubt- 
ful native),  spurge-laurel,  and  mistletoe.  Up  to  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century  only  a  few  evergreens  had 
been  introduced  from  abroad,  viz.,  spruce  pine,  silver  fir, 
stone  pine,  pinaster,  the  cedar  of  Lebanon,  savin,  arbor 
vitas,  evergreen  oak,  sweet  bay,  Portugal  laurel,  laurustine, 
and  arbutus. 

I  have  often  wished  to  have  some  simple,  straight- 
forward information  as  to  conifers,  so  as  to  be  able  to 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  313 

know  what  differences  among  them  are  really  recognized 
by  botanists,  and  what  are  the  correct  names  of  those 
which  one  commonly  sees.  Having  gathered  that  in- 
formation, I  propose  to  impart  it,  as  far  as  may  be 
consistent  with  brevity,  to  my  readers,  though  I  am 
afraid  that  to  some  it  will  prove  a  dull  business.  The 
order  Coniferae,  from  which  the  yew  trees  (Taxaceae) 
are  excluded,  is  divided  into  four  families.  These  are : 
(i)  the  family  Abietinae,  which  comprises  the  true  pines, 
and  fir  trees,  and  the  cedars  ;  (2)  the  family  Araucarianae, 
which  includes  the  Monkey  puzzle  of  South  America 
and  Australia,  and  the  Dammar  tree  of  New  Zealand  ; 
(3)  the  family  Taxodinae,  which  is  best  known  by  the 
so-called  Wellingtonia,  or  Sequoia,  but  includes  several 
other  genera  and  species  ;  and  (4)  the  family  Cupressinae, 
in  which  the  juniper,  cypress,  and  "  arbor  vitae,"  or 
Thuya,  are  placed. 

The  form  and  size  of  the  frequently  needle-like 
leaves  of  coniferae  are  not  of  so  much  importance  in 
indicating  the  affinities  of  these  plants  as  one  might 
expect,  although  their  grouping  either  in  [tufts  or  in  rows 
is  a  matter  of  significance.  In  some  of  them  the 
"  needles,"  or  leaves,  are  long  and  narrow  (Abietinae) ; 
in  others  they  are  broad  and  leaf-like  (Araucarianae)  ; 
in  others  they  are  all  or  most  of  them  reduced  to  mere 
ridges  or  short  scales  set  quite  closely  to  the  leaf-bearing 
branch  (many  Cupressinae  and  Taxodinae).  It  is  not 
possible  to  give,  without  going  into  botanical  minutiae, 
the  items  of  structure  by  which  the  four  families  of 
conifers  are  distinguished  from  one  another.  It  is  best 
for  the  nature-lover  who  is  not  an  adept  in  botanical 
details  to  think  of  them  as  grouped  each  round  one 
well-known  species.  Thus  the  Abietinae  are  grouped 
round  the  spruce  pine,  the  Araucarianae  round  the 


3H  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

monkey  puzzle,  the  Taxodinae  round  the  Wellingtonia, 
and  the  Cupressinae  round  the  juniper.  In  all  but  the 
last  family  the  ovule-bearing  scales  of  the  female  cone 
are  arranged  spiral-wise  around  a  central  supporting 
stem  ;  in  Cupressinae  they  are  few  in  number,  very 
thick,  and  opposite  to  one  another  so  as  to  form  a 
globular  rather  than  a  cone-shaped  body.  In  all  but  a 
few  Cupressinae  and  Araucarianae  the  male  and  female 
cones  are  carried  on  the  same  tree,  sometimes  on 


FIG.  33. — A  thin  slice  across  one  of  the  foliage 
needles  of  the  Common  Spruce.  Highly 
magnified,  r,  The  single  resin'  canal ;  f,  the 
mid-rib,  with  a  single  bundle  of  fibres  and 
vessels  cut  across. — (From  Veitch.) 


separate  branches,  but  usually  on  the  same  branch. 
The  male  and  female  cones  are  always  distinct,  and  the 
female  much  the  larger  and  more  enduring. 

The  Abietinoe  are  divided  into  three  tribes — (a)  the 
spruces  and  silver  firs  (this  group  corresponding  to 
the  French  Sapins\  (b)  the  larches  and  cedars,  (c)  the 
Scots  firs  (Pins  of  the  French).  Let  us  take  first 
the  group  of  spruces  and  silver  firs.  The  Norwegian 
spruce  is  the  type  of  the  genus  Picea.  It  is  called 
Pesse  by  the  French,  Fichte  by  the  Germans,  and 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  315 

Picea  excelsa  by  botanists.  We  may  contrast  it  with 
the  silver  fir  Abies  pectinata  (Sapin  des  Vosges  of  the 
French,  Silbertanne  of  the  Germans),  which  we  take  as 
the  type  of  the  genus  Abies.  In  many  respects  the 
silver  fir  looks  like  the  spruce.  In  both  the  stem  is 
straight,  reaching  a  height  of  100  to  150  feet, 
regularly  furnished  with  tiers  of  branches  from  the 
ground  upwards.  The  leaves  are  needles,  half  an  inch 
to  an  inch  long,  which  stand  out  from  the  branchlets, 
but  in  the  spruce  they  are  quadrangular,  green  all 
over,  and  arise  all  round  the  branch,  whilst  in  the 


FIG.  34. — A  thin  slice  across  one  of  the  foliage  needles  of  the 
Silver  Fir.  Highly  magnified.  It  is  flatter  than  the  similar 
slice  of  the  needle  of  the  spruce,  r,  r,  The  two  resin  canals  ; 
f,  the  mid-rib,  in  which  two  bundles  of  fibres  and  vessels 
can  be  distinguished. — (From  Veitch.) 

silver  fir  they  are  flat,  grooved  on  the  lower  surface, 
which  is  silver-grey  in  colour,  and  they  tend  to  be 
disposed  right  and  left  in  two  rows.  Each  needle 
has  a  single  resin  canal  in  the  spruce,  but  has  two 
in  the  silver  fir,  as  may  be  easily  seen  by  cutting 
the  needles  across  the  length  with  a  sharp  knife 
(Figs.  33  and  34).  Each  scale-like  ovule-producing 
leaf  which  goes  to  build  up  the  ripe  seed-bearing  cone 
has  (as  in  all  conifers  theoretically)  an  outer  scale, 
called  a  "  bract,"  attached  to  it  which  is  very  short 
and  hidden  in  the  case  of  the  spruce  cone,  but  is  longer 
than  the  ovuliferous  scale,  and  very  obvious  in  the 


3i6  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


FIG.  35. — The  upright  spine-bearing  cone  of  the 
Silver  Fir,  Abies  pectinata.  The  cones  vary 
from  this  size  to  one-third  as  long  again. 
(Copied  from  Veitch's  "  Manual  of  the  Coni- 
ferae,"  by  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Veitch. ) 

silver  fir  (Fig.  35).      It  has  a  triangular  re-curved  point, 
which    gives  the   cones    of  that  species    a  characteristic 


CHRISTMAS  TREES 


317 


appearance  (Fig.  36).  The  cones  of  the  silver  fir 
(5  to  6  inches  long  and  2  inches  thick)  are  set 
upright  on  the  branches,  and  when  they  have  shed  the 
seeds  the  scales  fall  off  rapidly  and  leave  the  axis  bare, 


ovs. 


ovs 


ovs 


FIG.  36. — a,  Structure  of  the  female  cone  of  the  Silver  Fir.  A  single 
cone-scale,  OVS,  with  its  reflected  and  pointed  "bract,"  br,  seen 
from  the  outer  surface ;  st,  stalk. 

b,  The  same  seen  from  the  inner  surface  ;  letters  as  before,  and  in  addition 

OV,  one  of  the  pair  of  naked  seeds  ;  W,  its  wing. 

c,  The  same  in  section,  showing  well  the  reflected  or  turned-over  spine- 

like  end  of  the  bract  ;  letters  as  before. 

d,  One  of  the  winged  seeds  detached. 

whilst  the  cones  of  the  spruce  (about  an  inch  shorter) 
are  pendulous  (Fig.  37),  and  their  scales  remain  in  position 
after  the  seed  is  shed. 


There  are  many  "  spruces,"  other  species  of  the  genus 
Picea,   from   various  parts  of  Europe,   temperate    Asia, 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


and  North  America,  which  are  cultivated  in  English 
parks  and  gardens.  Such  are  the  American  white  and 
red  and  black  spruces,  the  Siberian,  the  Oriental,  the 
Servian,  and  the  tiger's-tail  Japanese  spruce.  Then 
there  is  the  beautiful  variety  of  the  blue  American  spruce, 

Picea  pungens.  The  blue- 
grey  colour  of  the  needles  is 
frequently  obtained  as  a 
"  variety  "  in  the  cultivation 
of  different  species  of  coni- 
fers, as  also  is  the  yellow, 
or  golden-leaved,  condition. 


B 

FIG.  37. 

A,  The  female  cone 
of  the  Common 
Spruce,  Picea  ex- 
celsa.  Half  the 
natural  size 
(linear  measure- 
ment). It  hangs 
from  its  attach- 
ment instead  of 
standing  up  as 
does  the  cone  of 
the  silver  fir. 


In  the  genus  Abies,  asso- 
ciated with  the  silver  fir,  are 
a  whole  series  of  American, 
Siberian,  and  Japanese 
species.  An  interesting  one 
is  the  Californian  Abies 
bracteata,  which  has  thorn- 
like  processes  on  the  cone 
2  inches  in  length,  cor- 
responding to  the  re-curved 
spines  on  the  cone  of  the 
silver  fir.  It  was  introduced 


B,  Ripe  cone-scale  of  the  Common      mto    England    in    1853,   and 
Spruce,  detached  and  seen  from 
the  inner  face,  so  as  to  show  the 
two  winged  seeds.     Enlarged. 


specimens  are  growing  in 
Eastnor  Park,  near  Ledbury. 
The  beautiful  pinsapo  of  the 

Spanish  Sierra  Nevada  also  belongs  to  the  genus  Abies, 
and  may  be  seen  in  some  English  plantations.  The 
Tsuga  firs  of  Japan  and  North  America  are  related  to 
Abies,  but  are  now  placed  in  a  separate  genus  (Tsuga), 
as  also  is  the  Douglas  fir  of  North  America  (Pseudo- 
tsuga),  which  has  been  extensively  planted  in  Great  Britain. 


CHRISTMAS  TREES 


319 


The  Douglas  fir  is  readily  recognized  by  the  decorative 
trifid  outer  scales  or  "  bracts  "  of  the  rather  short  cone 
(Fig.  42).  When  freshly  grown  these  cones  have  beau- 
tiful purple  tints  mingled  with  pale  green. 

The  larches  and  cedars  form  the  second  group  or 
section  of  the  Abietinae,  distinguished  by  the  fact  that 
the  needle-like  leaves  grow 
in  tufts  of  twenty  to  forty 
at  the  end  of  short  stumpy 
branchlets  or  "  spurs  "  (Fig. 
38).  In  the  larches,  which 
form  the  genus  Larix,  the 
needles  fall  off  every  autumn 
and  leave  the  tree  bare,  the 
annually  -  renewed  feathery 
foliage  contrasting,  by  its 
fresh  bright  green  colour,  with 
the  darker  hues  of  the  per- 
sistent needles  of  other  coni- 
fers. The  common  larch 
(Larix  Europcea)  is  a  native  of 
the  mountainous  regions  of 
Central  Europe.  The  French 
call  it  MWze.  There  are 
Himalayan,  Japanese,  and 
North  American  species. 
The  common  larch  when  full-grown  is  loofeet  and  more 
in  height,  and  has  the  branches  arranged  in  whorls  of 
diminishing  length,  so  as  to  give  the  "  Christmas-tree 
shape  "  so  common  among  coniferae.  It  was  introduced 
into  England  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  cedars  closely  resemble  the  larches,  but  have  the 
leaves   or  needles  persistent,  and  the  large  cones    take 


FIG.  38.— Cone  and  foliage  (many 
needles  in  each  tuft)  of  the 
Common  Larch,  Larix  Euro- 
poea.  Of  the  natural  size. 


320  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

two  years  to  ripen,  instead  of  one  year,  as  in  all  the 
conifers  which  I  have  hitherto  mentioned.  The  cedars 
form  the  genus  Cedrus,  and  three  species  are  dis- 
tinguished, namely:  (i)  C.  Libani,  the  cedar  of 
Lebanon ;  (2)  C.  Atlantica,  the  North  African  cedar  of 
the  Atlas  mountains;  and  (3)  C.  deodara,  the  Hima- 
layan cedar  or  deodar.  They  are  now  considered  to 
be  geographical  varieties  of  one  species.  They  differ 
chiefly  in  the  set  of  the  branches  and  foliage.  The 
cedar  of  Lebanon  has  the  trunk  forked,  and  gives  rise 
to  large,  unequally  disposed  branches,  spreading  horizon- 
tally ;  it  may  have  a  spread  of  100  feet  and  a  height  of 
70  feet.  In  this  country  it  is  often  uprooted  by  the  wind, 
or  its  branches  are  broken  by  a  weight  of  snow,  when  it 
has  attained  nearly  full  growth.  The  deodar  cedar  is 
more  Christmas-tree-like  in  shape,  the  trunk  rarely  is 
forked,  and  it  attains,  in  its  native  mountains,  a  height 
of  250  feet.  The  Atlas  cedar  is  in  many  respects  inter- 
mediate in  character  between  C.  Libani  and  C.  deodara. 
The  cedar  of  Lebanon  is  undoubtedly  the  most  majestic 
of  the  conifers  grown  in  English  parks.  It  was  intro- 
duced in  the  year  1665.  There  are  specimens  growing 
in  this  country  of  which  the  trunk  has  a  girth  of  25  feet. 

The  third  section  of  the  family  Abietinae  is  formed 
by  the  genus  Pinus,  of  which  the  Scots  fir,  or  Scotch 
pine  (Pinus  sylvestris),  is  the  type.  The  Abietinae  of 
this  genus  are  distinguished  by  their  foliage.  There 
are  two  kinds  of  leaves — the  primitive  ones,  which  are 
little,  scale-like,  green  up-growths  closely  scattered  on 
the  young  branches ;  and  the  secondary  ones,  which  are 
long  needles  carried  as  a  tuft  or  fascicle  on  a  very 
stumpy  branchlet.  These  tufts  of  needles  are  persistent 
(that  is  to  say,  are  not  shed  yearly),  and  differ  from 
those  of  the  larches  and  cedars  in  consisting  of  but  few 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  321 

needles  in  a  tuft,  the  number  being  characteristic  of 
different  species,  some  having  five,  others  three,  others 
two,  and  the  American  Pinus  monophylla  having  only 
one.  The  general  shape  of  these  trees  is  not  tapering 
like  the  spruce  with  unforked  trunk,  but  they  usually 
shed  the  lower  branches  as  growth  goes  on,  and  present 
in  most  cases  a  trunk  carrying  an  umbrella-like  expanse 
of  foliage-bearing  branches,  or  several  such  expanses. 
The  scales  which  form  the  cones  in  the  genus  Pinus  are 
(with  few  exceptions,  such  as  the  Weymouth  pine)  not  flat 
and  flexible,  but  are  thickened,  swollen,  and  even  knob- 
like  and  wooden  at  the  exposed  part,  which  is  armed 
with  a  weak  or  a  strong  prickle  (see  Figs.  39,  40,  and  41). 
The  cones  do  not  ripen  until  the  end  of  the  second  or 
third  season  ;  they  may  be,  according  to  species,  erect, 
pendulous,  or  horizontal,  and  vary  in  size  in  different 
species.  In  some  they  remain  closed  on  the  trees  for 
an  indefinite  period  (even  fifteen  or  twenty  years),  until 
opened  by  the  heat  of  a  forest  fire  or  of  an  exceptionally 
hot  season. 

The  Scots  fir,  Pinus  sylvestris  (Fig.  3  i),  called  Pin  de 
Geneve  by  the  French,  has  a  very  wide  range.  It  extends 
eastward  and  northward  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,  in 
Spain,  through  Europe  and  Russian  Asia ;  its  northern 
limit  approaches  the  Arctic  circle,  its  southern  limit  is 
formed  by  the  great  mountain  chains  of  the  Alps, 
Caucasus,  and  Altai  range  of  Asia.  The  beautiful  blue- 
green  colour  of  its  needles,  the  fine  red-brown  tint  of 
its  trunk  and  branches,  and  the  graceful  spread  of  its 
foliage  high  up  on  a  few  great,  unequally-grown  branches 
springing  from  its  tall,  bare  trunk,  are  amongst  the  most 
picturesque  features  of  English  landscape.  In  the 
southern  counties  "  clumps  "  of  a  dozen  or  score  of  these 
graceful  trees  are  often  to  be  seen  on  some  isolated  hill- 
21 


322  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

top  in  the  moorlands,  and  are  associated  with  poetic 
tradition  and  ancient  superstition.  In  the  North  of 
Britain  they  are  more  frequent  as  forest.  The  Scots 
fir  is  the  only  pine  tree  really  native  in  our  land.  It 
is  distinguished  from  several  other  species  of  Pinus  by 
having  the  leaves  or  needles  in  bundles  of  two,  and 
having  relatively  small  oblong  cones  (2  to  3  inches  long) 
which  are  borne  near  the  ends  of  the  branches  (Fig.  31). 
The  constituent  scales  of  the  cone  are  only  slightly 
thickened,  and  the  surface  knob  has  no  prickle.  There 
are  two  of  the  common  pine  trees  of  the  Mediterranean 
coast  (the  Riviera  and  elsewhere),  namely,  the  Aleppo 
pine  (Pinus  halepensis)  and  the  so-called  Corsican  or 
Austrian  pine  (Pinus  Laricio),  which  agree  in  the  above- 
given  points  with  the  Scots  fir,  and  are,  in  fact,  difficult 
to  distinguish  from  it,  except  by  general  shape,  mode  of 
growth,  and  the  colour  of  the  leaves  and  stem.  The 
needles  of  the  Scots  fir  are  I  \  to  3  inches  long,  those 
of  P.  halepensis  2|  to  3  \  inches,  and  those  of  P.  Laricio 
4  to  6  inches  long.  The  Pyrenaean  or  Calabrian  pine 
is  closely  similar  to  these. 

A  very  important  and  abundant  pine  on  the 
Mediterranean  and  Biscay  coast  of  France  is  the  Pinaster 
(Pinus  pinaster),  often  called  the  "  cluster  pine,"  and  by 
the  French  Pin  des  Landes  and  Pin  maritime  (Fig.  39). 
It  also  has  its  needles,  often  6  inches  long,  in  groups  of 
two.  It  is  usually  a  smaller  tree  than  the  others,  but  in 
favourable  localities  attains  a  height  of  80  feet.  Its  cones 
are  twice  as  long  as  those  of  the  Scots  fir,  often,  as  at 
Bournemouth,  4  and  even  5  inches  long,  and  its  branches 
are  slender  in  proportion  to  the  trunk,  the  bark  coarse 
and  fissured,  and  its  foliage  (as  is  that  of  all  the  two-leaved 
set  except  the  Scots  fir)  of  a  yellowish  (not  bluish)  green. 
It  has  been  found  invaluable  in  holding  sandy  land  from 


CHRISTMAS  TREES 


323 


shifting  and  break- 
ing  up,  and  is 
planted  for  this  pur- 
pose along  the  coast 
of  the  Landes  and 
in  other  parts  of 
the  world. 

A  still  better- 
known  pine,  which, 
like  those  already 
mentioned,  has  its 
needles  in  pairs,  is 
the  stone  pine 
(Pinus  pinea),  called 
by  the  French  Pin 
de  parasol  and  by 
the  Italians  Pino  a 
pinocchi.  This  fine 
tree  (usually  bigger 
than  the  Pinaster) 
has  been  largely 
planted  in  Italy  on 
account  of  its  pic- 
turesque appear- 
ance. This  is  the 
tree  which  one  sees 
so  often  in  Turner's 
landscapes.  The 
needles  are  5  to  6 
inches  long,  and  the 
cones  are  very  large 
and  almost  spheri- 
cal, being  often  5 
inches  long  and  4 


FIG.  39. — Female  Cone  of  the  Pinaster,  or  Mari- 
time Pine  (Pinus  pinaster).  Drawn  of  the 
natural  size  from  a  Bournemouth^specimen. 


324  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

inches  in  diameter.  The  cones  do  not  mature  until 
the  third  year.  The  scales  are  very  large  and  solid, 
which  renders  it  difficult  to  extract  the  nut-like  seeds, 
which  are  roasted  and  eaten.  Hence  the  name  stone- 
pine.  The  spreading,  parasol-like  shape  of  the  stone- 
pine  is  characteristic.  A  few  specimens  are  to  be  seen 
in  cultivation  in  this  country.  In  order  to  distinguish 
Pinus  sylvestris  from  P.  halepensis,  laricio,  pinaster,  and 
pinea,  the  deep  blue-green  colour  of  the  foliage  of  the 
first  is  sufficient,  together  with  the  shortness  of  its 
needles.  To  distinguish  the  others  among  themselves 
(except  in  the  case  of  well-grown  typical  examples)  it  is 
necessary  to  examine  the  cones  closely,  and  often  when 
one  comes  upon  these  trees  they  are,  on  account  of  the 
season,  devoid  of  these  distinguishing  products. 

Wide  tracts  of  sandy  moorland  in  the  south  of 
England  have  been  in  the  last  century  extensively 
planted  with  various  species  of  Pinus,  and  afford  the 
naturalist  an  interesting  opportunity  for  comparing  one 
with  another.  At  Bournemouth  the  plantations  are 
chiefly  of  the  Austrian  variety  of  Pinus  Laricio,1  the  Scots 
P.  sylvestris,  and  the  Mediterranean  Pinaster.  The  latter 
is  especially  luxuriant  there.  Here  and  there  I  have 
found  other  species  at  Bournemouth.  A  remarkable  one 
with  three  needles  in  a  group  is  the  Californian  Pinus 
insignis  (Fig.  40),  known  as  the  Monterey  pine.  It  has 
a  very  large  cone  which  is  curiously  one-sided  in  growth, 
the  seed-scales  on  the  side  facing  away  from  the 
supporting  branch  being  larger  than  those  on  the 
opposite  face.  Another  interesting  species  to  be  met 
with  there  is  the  Pinus  muricata,  also  a  Californian  sea- 
coast  species.  The  cones  of  this  species  are  about  3 

1  A  fine  specimen  is,  growing  near  the  main  entrance  of  Kew 
Gardens. 


CHRISTMAS  TREES 


325 


FIG.  40. — Female  Cone  of  the  Monterey  Pine  of  California  (Pinus 
insignis).  Of  the  natural  size,  but  somewhat  larger  specimens 
are  frequent.  The  characteristic  three  foliage  needles  in  a 
bunch,  in  place  of  two  or  five  distinctive  of  some  other  species 
of  Pinus,  are  shown  in  the  drawing  on  the  left. — (From 
Veitch's  "  Manual  of  Coniferae.") 


326          DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

inches  long  and  half  that  in  breadth.  In  all  the  species 
of  Pinus  the  outer  end  of  the  scales  which  build  up  the 
cone  is  swollen  and  squeezed  compactly  by  its  fellows, 
forming  a  hard  shield-like  surface  of  a  lozenge  shape,  in 
the  middle  of  which  is  a  knob  or  process  (see  Figs.  31, 
39,  and  40).  Usually  this  is  short  and  not  very  sharp,  but 
in  Pinus  muricata  the  cone  is  very  hard  and  solid  and  the 


FIG.  41. — Female  Cone  of  Pinus  muricata,  showing  the  long 
sharp  spines  which  stand  up  from  the  boss  or  umbo  in 
the  centre  of  the  swollen,  woody,  lozenge-shaped  end  or 
"apex"  of  each  seed-scale.  Compare  these  with  the 
un-armed  bosses  in  the  centre  of  each  lozenge  building  up 
the  surface  of  the  cones  drawn  in  Figs.  31,  39,  and  40. 

knob  is  elongated  into  a  spine  of  nearly  one-third  of  an  inch 
long  (Fig.  4 1 ).  Theses  pines  are  so  hard  and  sharp  that 
they  render  it  impossible  to  grasp  the  cone  with  the  hand  in 
order  to  pluck  it.  The  cones  remain  on  the  tree  for  fifteen 
years  or  more,  and  may  be  seen  in  close-set  clusters  sur- 
rounding quite  old  branches.  The  cones  of  Pinus  rigida — 
one  of  the  American  pitch-pines — are  similarly  protected 
by  spines.  Pinus  rigida  is  easily  distinguished  by  its 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  327 

having    its    needles    in    bundles    of    three    from     Pinus 


FIG.  42. — Female  Cone  of  the  Douglas  Fir  of  North- West  America 
(Oregon  and  Vancouver),  Pseudotsuga  Douglasii.  Of  the  natural 
size. — (From  Veitch.) 

muricata,  which  has  the  more  usual  arrangement  of  a 
pair  of  needles  to  each  bundle.      The  Douglas  fir  is  also 


328  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

to  be  found  here  and  there  in  the  gardens  and  parks 
of  Bournemouth.  Its  cones  (Fig.  42)  are  remarkable  for 
their  beautiful  purple  and  pale  green  tints  when  young, 
and  for  the  long  trifid  bract  on  the  outside  of  each  scale, 
similar  to  but  larger  than  those  on  the  cone-scales  of 
the  silver  fir,  Abies  pectinata  (Fig.  35),  and  not  bent 
backwards  as  they  are. 

There  are  two  pine  trees  of  the  genus  Pinus  which 
one  comes  across,  either  in  English  plantations  or  on 
the  Continent,  and  are  readily  distinguished  by  having 
the  leaves  (needles)  in  bundles  of  five.  The  first  of 
these  is  the  Arolla  pine — Pinus  Cembra  (French, 
cembrof) — a  pine  tree  much  like  the  Scots  fir  in  general 
appearance,  but  distinguishable  from  it,  not  only  by  the 
tufts  of  five  needles  in  a  bunch  instead  of  two,  but  also 
by  the  erect  cones  which  are  nearly  as  broad  as  long 
(3  in.  by  2  in.).  It  is  essentially  a  Siberian  tree,  and 
grows  in  Europe  only  on  the  Carpathian  Mountains  and 
the  Alps.  I  have  seen  it  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Rhone  Valley  in  Switzerland,  but  it  is  yearly  becoming 
rarer  owing  to  its  destruction  at  the  great  heights 
(4000  to  6000  feet),  where  it  formerly  flourished,  by  the 
herdsmen  in  order  to  extend  the  pasturage  for  their 
milk  industry.  The  other  pine  with  five  leaves  in  a  tuft, 
which  one  may  often  see,  is  the  Weymouth  pine — Pinus 
Strobus.  It  is  a  native  of  the  New  England  States  and 
Canada,  where  it  is  known  as  the  white  pine,  and  is 
greatly  valued  as  a  timber  tree.  It  was  introduced  and 
planted  in  England  by  Lord  Weymouth  at  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  is  a  very  handsome  tree, 
growing  to  120  feet  in  height,  with  a  bluish-green  colour 
of  the  foliage  like  that  of  the  Scots  fir.  The  needles 
are  3  to  4  inches  long,  and  the  cones  pendulous,  5  to 
6  inches  long  and  blunt.  Another  pine  of  the  five-leaved 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  329 

group  is  to  be  seen  in  gardens  in  the  South  of  Europe 
(for  instance  at  Baveno  on  the  Lago  Maggiore),  where 
it  is  introduced  from  Mexico.  This  is  the  Pinus 
Montezumae,  which  has  extraordinarily  long  tufts  of 
needles  of  a  blue-green  colour,  each  needle  from  7  to 
10  inches  long,  arranged  as  radiating  or  fan-like  growths 
of  great  beauty  and  striking  appearance.  The  Bohtan 
pine  of  the  Himalayas  (Pinus  excelsa — not  to  be  con- 
fused with  Picea  excelsa,  the  spruce)  is  also  a  five-leaved 
species.  Several  specimens  of  it  are  flourishing  in  Kew 
Gardens. 

A  few  lines  must  be  given  to  the  Araucarianae, 
Taxodinae,  and  Cupressinse.  The  Araucarianae  include, 
besides  the  Chilian  monkey  puzzle,  an  Australian  species, 
and  the  New  Zealand  Dammar  pine  Agathis,  which 
produces  the  amber-like  Kauri  gum.  The  leaves  of  the 
monkey  puzzle  are  like  the  scales  of  a  spruce  cone  in 
shape,  and  the  ordinary  branches  are  like  elongated 
green  spruce-cones,  whilst  the  seed-cones  have  needle-like 
scales.  The  next  family,  the  Taxodinae,  are  in  many 
respects  intermediate  in  character,  between  the  Abietinas 
(true  pines,  cedars,  and  firs)  and  the  Cupressinae  (cypresses 
and  junipers).  They  have  very  small,  lance-shaped 
leaves,  closely  packed,  so  as  to  overlap  one  another — 
as  in  the  celebrated  Wellingtonia  or  American  Big- tree — 
and  small  cones,  with  hard,  knob-like  scales,  resembling 
those  of  the  most  woody- coned  Pinus,  but  few  in  number. 
The  American  Big-tree  (native  on  the  western  slopes 
of  the  Californian  Sierra  Nevada)  is  named  "  Sequoia 
gigantea"  by  the  botanists.  It  was  introduced  into 
England  about  sixty  years  ago.  The  Red-wood,  of  the 
Pacific  coast  of  the  United  States,  is  another  species  of 
Sequoia  (S.  sempervirens),  and  it  appears  that  a  specimen 
of  it  has  been  measured  as  reaching  340  feet  in  height; 


330  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

whilst  no  living  specimen  of  the  S.  gigantea  has  been 
definitely  measured  of  more  than  325  feet  in  height. 
There  are  several  other  large  exotic,  pine-like  trees,  which 
are  placed  in  the  Taxodinae.  The  extraordinary  and 
interesting  tree  called  the  Japanese  umbrella  pine 
(Sciadopitys  verticillata)  is  associated  with  the  Sequoias 
by  some  botanists ;  but  it  is  in  important  respects  unlike 
any  other  conifer.  It  has  a  very  peculiar  foliage,  namely, 
rod-like  leaflets,  twenty  to  thirty  in  number,  arranged 
in  circlets  or  whorls  like  the  spokes  or  ribs  of  an  umbrella. 
The  curious  thing  is  that  these  are  not  "  leaves,"  but, 
according  to  botanists,  are  leaf-like  shoots  or  branchlets ! 
It  may  be  seen  growing  in  Kew  Gardens,  where  it  was 
introduced  thirty  years  ago. 

The  last  family  of  the  Coniferae  is  the  Cupressinae,  so 
named  after  the  great  and  beautiful  cypress  tree,  which 
is  said  to  have  given  its  name  to  the  island  of  Cyprus, 
which  in  turn  gives  its  name  to  cupreous  metal,  or  copper. 
The  cypress  tree  similarly  gives  its  name  to  "  coffers  " 
and  "  coffins  "  made  of  its  wood,  as  the  Buxus  or  box-tree 
has  given  its  name  to  a  "  box."  The  cypress  is  the 
Gopher  tree  of  the  Hebrews.  The  family  includes  many 
species  of  junipers  (Juniperus)  and  the  American  and  Jap- 
anese Arbor  vitae  (Thuya)  and  its  allies.  In  the  common 
cypress  (Cupressus  sempervirens)  the  leaves  are  singular, 
small,  scale-like  growths,  which  are  flattened  on  to  the 
delicate  branchlets  which  bear  them.  In  other  trees  of  the 
family  both  such  leaves  and  also  upstanding  lancet-like 
leaves  are  present.  The  main  character  is  the  small  size 
and  globular  shape  of  the  cones  and  the  very  few  swollen 
scales,  more  like  solid  wedges  adherent  to  one  another, 
which  build  them  up.  These  wedge-like  scales  are  not 
arranged  in  whorls,  but  are  opposite  to  one  another  on  the 
short  axis  or  stem  of  the  cone.  The  common  juniper 


CHRISTMAS  TREES  331 

(Juniperus  communis),  the  gtnevrier  of  the  French,  grows 
abundantly  on  the  chalk  downs  of  the  South  of  England, 
where  it  appears  as  a  small  bush,  not  exceeding  5  feet  in 
height,  but  in  favourable  conditions  reaches  a  height  of 
20  feet.  The  cones  of  the  juniper  are  numerous,  and 
each  consists  of  only  three  ovuliferous  scales,  and  is  only 
one-fifth  of  an  inch  in  diameter  when  ripe,  and  of  a 
blackish  violet  colour. 

At  the  close  of  this  compressed  survey  of  the  order 
Coniferae,  let  me  put  the  chief  forms  and  groups  at  which 
we  have  looked  in  a  tabular  form,  thus  : 

Order  CONIFERS: 

FAMILY  i.— ABIETIN^. 
SECTION  A.— SAPINE^E  (SPRUCES  AND  SILVER  FIRS). 

Genus  i. — Picea.    2.  Tsuga.   3.  Pseudotsuga.    4.  Abies. 
SECTION  B.— LARICE^E  (LARCHES  AND  CEDARS). 

Genus  i. — Larix.     2.  Cedrus. 
SECTION  C.— PINE^E. 

Genus  unic. — Pinus. 

FAMILY  2.— ARAUCARIANyE. 

Genus  i. — Araucaria.     2.  Agathis.     2.  Cunninghamia. 

FAMILY  3.— TAXODIN^:. 

Genus  i. — Sequoia.     2  Taxodium.     3.  Sciadopitys,  etc. 

FAMILY  4.— CUPRESSIN^:. 

Genus  i  — Cupressus.     2.  Thuya.     3.  Juniperus,  etc. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII 
THE   LYMPH   AND   THE   LYMPHATIC   SYSTEM 

MOST  people  do  not  know  even  of  the  existence  in 
their  own  bodies  of  a  fluid  called  "  the  lymph,"  and 
of  a  system  of  vessels  and  spaces  containing  it  which 
ramify  like  the  blood-vessels  into  every  part  of  the  body. 
This  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  lymph  is  translucent 
and  colourless.  You  can  see  the  finest  blood-vessels 
when  the  body  of  a  dead  rat,  sheep,  or  man  is  opened, 
because  they  are  filled  with  the  beautiful  red  blood,  and 
appear  as  a  rich,  coloured  network.  But  the  lymph 
and  the  lymph-vessels  escape  notice,  and,  indeed,  are 
invisible  except  the  largest,  because  they  are  colourless. 
They  remained  unknown  to  anatomists  long  after  arteries 
and  veins,  and  the  fine  networks  of  hair-like  vessels 
or  capillaries  connecting  them,  were  thoroughly  well 
studied.  It  is,  when  one  thinks  of  it,  a  very  noteworthy 
fact,  tending  to  convince  us  of  the  readiness  with  which 
we  may  (in  the  absence  of  careful  examination  and 
attention)  overlook  the  most  weighty  things,  that  here 
is  a  great  system  of  vessels  and  spaces  in  the  human 
body  and  in  that  of  other  animals,  carrying  on  most 
important  operations  in  our  daily  life,  and  yet  most  of 
us  have  never  seen  any  evidence  of  its  existence,  and 
never  hold  it  in  our  mind's  eye  as  part  of  the  great 

mechanism  of  the  animal  body. 

332 


THE  LYMPH  AND  LYMPHATIC  SYSTEM     333 

The  lymph  is  a  clear,  colourless  fluid,  with  "  cor- 
puscles " — minute  nucleated  cells  or  particles  of  pro- 
toplasm —  floating  in  it.  The  liquid  part  is  closely 
similar  in  its  properties  and  chemical  constitution  to  the 
liquid  part  of  the  blood.  It,  indeed,  consists  largely  of 
the  liquid  part  of  the  blood  which  exudes  from  the 
finest  hair-like  blood-vessels  or  capillaries  as  they 
traverse  the  various  tissues,  and  it  is  the  chief  business 
of  the  "  lymphatics  "  or  lymph-holding  vessels  to  return 
this  exuded  liquid  to  the  blood  system,  which  they  do 
by  joining — like  the  rivulets  of  a  river  system — to  form 
two  large  trunks  which  open  into  the  great  blood-holding 
veins  at  the  region  where  they  approach  the  heart.  The 
total  amount  of  lymph  in  the  lymphatic  system  is  difficult 
to  estimate,  but  it  is  larger  in  quantity  than  the  blood  in 
the  entire  blood-vascular  system.  A  large  number  of 
the  delicate  vessels  of  the  lymphatic  system  take  their 
origin  just  below  the  lining  layer  of  the  intestine,  and 
ramify  through  the  transparent  membrane,  which  holds 
the  coils  of  intestine  together,  and  is  called  the  mesentery. 
The  fatty  or  oily  materials  of  food  pass  through  the 
lining  "  cells  "  of  the  intestinal  wall  into  these  "  lacteal  " 
or  milky  lymphatics,  and  consequently  in  an  animal 
killed  and  examined  after  a  meal,  the  fluid  in  them 
has  a  milky  appearance,  and  renders  this  kind  of 
"  lymphatics  "  visible. 

They  were  for  this  reason  the  first  to  be  detected,  and 
were  known  even  in  ancient  times  to  anatomists.  The 
milky  fluid  in  them  was  called  "  the  chyle."  Its  milky 
appearance  is  due  to  the  same  cause  as  the  white  opaque 
appearance  of  milk,  namely,  to  the  presence  of  an 
immense  number  of  excessively  small  particles  of  oil 
(fat)  and  a  certain  proportion  of  larger  globules  of  the 
same  nature.  It  was  thus  not  difficult  for  the  old 


334 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


anatomists  to  trace  the  fine  branches  of  the  lacteals 
uniting  branch  to  branch,  and  at  last  forming  a  large 
trunk — called  the  thoracic  duct — about 
a  quarter  of  an  inch  thick,  which  runs 
up  the  inner  face  of  the  backbone  to  the 
neck,  where  it  joins  the  great  left  sub- 
clavian  vein,  and  pours  its  contents  into 
the  blood-stream  which  is  there  nearing 
the  heart.  A  small  trunk  formed  by 
the  union  of  lymphatic  vessels  from  the 
right  side  of  the  head  and  neck  and 
the  right  upper  limb 
FIG.  43.  —  The  opens  into  the  right  sub- 
fore  -  arm  of 
man,  with  the 
skin  removed 
so  as  to  show 
the  large  sup- 
erficial lym- 
phatic vessels 

resting  on  the     Gradually    it  was    made 
out    that    there    are    in- 
numerable      transparent 
knotted  cords,      branches  opening  into  the 
On  the  palm     thoracic    duct    from    the 

?o  c\he  ?and  whole  of  the  body>  be~ 

sides    the    milky-looking 
lacteals:   branches  which 
bring  "  limpid"  clear  fluid, 
or  "  lymph,"  from  all  the 
the      smaller     viscera,  from  the  muscles, 
lymphatic  cap-     and     from     the     deeper 

illaries        and       layers  of  the  skin  jn  every 

region  of  the  body,  even 
from  the  toes,  fingers,  and 
tongue  tip.  In  fact,  wherever  the  blood-vessels  take 
blood  there  are  also  vessels  of  the  lymphatic  system 


clavian  vein.  It  took 
some  time  to  discover 
this  smaller  trunk,  since 
it  is  not  brought  to 

vieW     b       milk      Contents. 


muscles.  They 
are  represent- 
ed as  white 


closer  network 
of  these  ves- 
sels is  repre- 
sented, but 


spaces  are  not 
shown. 


THE  LYMPH  AND  LYMPHATIC  SYSTEM     335 

bringing  back  to  the  heart  the  liquid  exudation  which 
escapes  into  the  tissues  from  the  finest  blood-vessels 
(Fig.  43). 

Whilst  we  distinguish  in  an  animal  body  various 
"  tissues  "  which  have  special  properties  and  activities, 
and  can  be  dissected  out  and  delimited — as  we  could 
dissect  and  distinguish  the  "  tissues "  (flannel,  silk, 
leather,  whalebone,  wadding,  gold-thread,  etc.)  making 
up  an  elaborate  padded,  stiffened  brocaded,  lined,  and 
decorated  costume — we  find  that,  unlike  what  is  usual  in 
a  man-made  costume,  all  the  parts  of  an  animal  body 
(viscera,  and  their  lobes  and  sub-divisions,  the  blood- 
vessels, nerves,  muscles,  bones,  etc.),  are  covered  and 
separated  from  one  another,  and,  at  the  same  time,  held 
together  by  a  ubiquitous  soft,  spongy  tissue,  consisting 
of  delicate  threads  and  bands,  enclosing  spaces — some 
excessively  minute  and  narrow,  others  larger — in  which 
is  a  liquid.  This  is  the  great  packing  tissue  of  the 
body,  and  is  called  "the  connective  tissue."  Its  threads 
and  bands  have  delicate,  usually  flat  nucleated  corpuscles 
(so-called  "  cells ")  of  transparent  protoplasm  resting 
upon  them  and  bathed  by  the  liquid  in  the  fine  spaces. 
The  threads  and  bands  are,  indeed,  the  product  of  the 
protoplasmic  cells,  built  or  "  spun  "  by  them,  laid  down 
by  them  as  a  snail  leaves  a  slimy  smear  behind  it  as 
it  crawls.  It  is  not  difficult  to  cut  out  transparent 
pieces  of  this  "  connective  tissue  "  from  a  recently  killed 
animal  and  to  examine  it  with  a  very  high  power  of 
the  microscope.  You  may  then  see  the  living  proto- 
plasmic corpuscles  slowly  "  streaming "  and  changing 
shape,  and  sometimes  dividing  (one  into  two)  so  as  to 
form  new  corpuscles. 

I  made  my  first  acquaintance  with  them  when   I  was 


336  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

a  student  at  Vienna  with  the  great  microscopist  Strieker. 
We  used  the  glass-clear  connective  tissue  which  forms 
the  "  cornea  "  of  the  eye,  cut  from  a  freshly  killed  frog. 
In  those  days  the  part  taken  by  these  cells  in  inflamma- 
tion was  being  discovered,  the  name  "  phagocyte "  had 
not  been  invented,  the  part  played  by  them  and  by 
bacteria  in  disease  and  the  suppuration  of  wounds  was 
unknown,  and  I  had  the  privilege  of  introducing  Lister's 
earliest  researches  on  aseptic  surgery  and  on  the  coagu- 
lation of  the  blood  to  the  notice  of  my  friend  and 
teacher. 

This  ubiquitous  "  connective  tissue "  underlying  the 
skin,  pushing  its  way  into  and  around  every  part  of 
every  structure  in  the  body,  is  the  "  source " — the 
reservoir,  as  it  were — from  which  the  lymph  stream  and 
the  finest  lymphatic  vessels  take  their  origin.  The 
question  may  very  naturally  be  asked,  "  How  is  it  that 
the  lymph  flows  along  the  channels  provided  by  the 
transparent  lymph  vessels  and  is  poured  through  '  the 
thoracic  duct '  into  the  great  vein  near  the  heart  ? " 
If  we  inject  a  suitable  coloured  fluid  by  means  of  a 
needle-pointed  syringe  into  any  mass  of  connective  tissue, 
we  can  see  the  fluid  pass  into  the  numerous  lymph 
vessels  previously  invisible,  and  if  we  inject  into  them  a 
weak  solution  of  silver  nitrate  we  can,  subsequently  by  aid 
of  the  microscope,  make  out  the  structure  of  the  walls  of 
the  lymphatics  and  the  lining  pavement  cells  which  become 
stained  of  a  brown  colour  by  the  silver  when  exposed 
to  light.  But  there  is  no  muscular  envelope,  nothing 
like  "  a  lymph-heart "  in  mammals,  to  drive  the  lymph 
along.  There  are  valves  or  flexible  flaps  in  the  walls  of 
the  lymph- vessels,  as  there  are  in  the  veins,  and  the 
lymph  is  driven  to  the  heart  by  the  intermittent  pressure 
upon  these  valved  tubes,  caused  by  the  movements  of 


THE  LYMPH  AND  LYMPHATIC  SYSTEM     337 

the  muscles  and  of  the  body  generally.  The  valves, 
like  those  of  the  veins,  prevent  the  flow  of  the  lymph 
backwards,  but  allow  it  to  pass  forward  towards  the 
heart.  This  is  shown  by  the  examination  of  a  narcotized 
mammal  (killed  immediately  after  the  examination  has 
been  made).  A  glass  tube  is  placed  in  the  thoracic 
duct,  and  about  a  dozen  drops  of  lymph  (which  would  have 
been  delivered  into  the  great  vein)  pass  from  it  in  a 
minute.  If,  however,  the  animal's  legs  are  moved,  as 
though  in  running,  or  if  "  massage "  is  applied  to  the 
limbs — the  pressure  being  directed  from  the  extremities 
towards  the  heart — then  a  greatly  increased  flow  of 
lymph  is  observed,  as  much  as  sixty  drops  in  a  minute ! 
This  is  the  chief  explanation  of  the  value  to  our  health 
of  exercise,  and  also  of  the  importance  of  "  massage  "  as 
a  treatment  in  disease.  Either  exercise  or  massage 
entirely  revolutionizes  the  rate  of  flow  of  the  lymph, 
quickening  it  so  greatly  that  the  physiological  effect  on 
the  general  chemical  processes  going  on  in  the  body 
cannot  fail  to  be  most  important. 

Curiously  enough,  whilst  mammals  have  to  depend 
entirely  on  pressure  and  exercise  for  anything  but  the 
slowest  flow  of  the  lymph,  the  cold-blooded  vertebrates, 
fish,  amphibia  and  reptiles  (and  even  some  birds),  have 
remarkable,  rhythmically  contracting,  muscular  sacs, 
which  pump  the  lymph  from  large  lymph-vessels  into 
large  veins,  and  are  called  "  lymphatic  hearts."  The 
eel  and  other  fish  have  them  in  the  tail,  but  they  are 
best  seen  in  the  common  frog.  There  is  an  anterior 
pair,  one  under  each  shoulder-blade,  and  another  pair, 
one  on  each  hip.  Each  opens  at  one  end  into  a  large 
"collecting"  lymph-vessel,  and  at  the  other  end  into  a 
large  vein.  They  "  beat "  like  a  heart,  but  do  not  keep 
time  with  one  another.  Their  muscular  walls  are  formed 

22 


338  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

by  what  is  called  "  striated "  muscular  tissue  (as  are 
those  of  the  blood-heart),  and  they  are  under  the  control 
of  branches  of  the  spinal  nerves.  The  movement  of  the 
hinder  pair  in  a  frog  can  be  seen  through  the  skin. 

In  man  and  all  vertebrate  animals  the  intestines, 
stomach  and  liver,  heart  and  lungs  (or  swim-bladder)  lie 
loose,  except  for  a  fibrous  band  of  attachment,  in  a  great 
cavity  (often  divided  into  two  or  more  chambers),  which 
they  fit  fairly  closely.  The  small  space  between  them 
and  the  walls  of  the  cavity  is  occupied  by  a  liquid. 
This  is  lymph,  and  the  great  cavity  is  a  lymph-space. 
When  this  cavity  is  in  its  primitive  form  it  is  called  the 
body  cavity,  or  "  ccelom."  In  man  and  mammals  it  is 
divided  into  four  chief  chambers — the  peritoneal  cavity 
(in  which  the  stomach,  intestine,  and  liver  are  loosely 
attached  and  have  a  certain  mobility),  the  right  pleural 
and  left  pleural  cavity  (one  for  each  lung),  and  the 
pericardial  cavity  (for  the  heart).  These  great  chambers 
are  part  of  the  lymph-system,  and  so  is  the  lymph- 
holding  space  around  and  within  the  brain  and  spinal 
cord,  and  so  are  the  great  spaces  beneath  the  frog's 
skin. 

If  we  look  at  the  structure  of  an  earth-worm  or  of 
one  of  the  graceful  marine  worms  (Nereis  or  Arenicola), 
we  gain  a  good  deal  of  light  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
lymphatic  system  of  Vertebrates.  Suppose  you  have 
killed  a  large  earth-worm  with  chloroform  !  Then  pin  it 
out  on  a  cork  plate,  and  open  it  by  a  cut  along  the  back 
with  a  fine  pair  of  scissors.  The  point  of  your  scissors 
passes  through  the  muscular  body- wall  of  the  worm  into 
a  great  chamber  filled  with  a  clear  liquid.  This  chamber 
is  the  "  coelom,"  and  is  the  same  structure  as  the  pleural 
and  peritoneal  chambers  of  the  Vertebrate.  But  it  holds 


THE  LYMPH  AND  LYMPHATIC  SYSTEM     339 

(proportionately)  more  liquid.  The  liquid  is  "  lymph," 
like  that  of  the  Vertebrate,  and  has  numerous  proto- 
plasmic cells  floating  in  it.  There  is  comparatively  little 
connective  tissue  in  the  earth-worm.  The  coelom  is  free 
and  unblocked — the  great  viscera  lie  in  it.  There  are 
some  delicate,  transparent  bands  of  connective  tissue,  but 
not  much  nor  bulky.  The  wall  of  the  ccelom  itself  is 
lined  with  connective  tissue,  and  if  that  tissue  grew  greatly 
in  bulk,  and  bound  all  the  organs  and  muscles  together,  it 
would  reduce  the  large  cavity,  filling  it  up  with  spongy 
tissue  in  the  small  interstices  of  which  there  would 
be  lymph.  And  so  we  should  get  a  lymph  system 
resembling  that  of  Vertebrates,  instead  of  one  large 
chamber. 

But  what  about  the  opening  of  the  lymphatics  into 
the  blood-vessels  ?  This  is  one  of  the  interesting  differ- 
ences between  the  earth-worm  and  the  Vertebrate.  The 
earthworm  and  many  marine  worms  have  a  beautiful 
system  of  vessels,  containing  a  bright  red  blood,  and 
forming  true  capillaries,  connecting  arteries  and  veins. 
The  heart  is  along,  rhythmically  beating  tube,  extending 
along  the  whole  length  of  the  animal  just  above  the 
intestine.  There  is  no  opening  into  it  of  the  lymph- 
cavity.  It  is  purely  a  respiratory  blood-system,  pump- 
ing its  fluid,  coloured  red  by  oxygen-seizing  haemoglobin 
into  every  part  of  the  body.  It  passes  along  the  fine 
capillaries  of  the  skin,  where  it  seizes  oxygen  from  the 
outside  air  or  water  and  carries  it  to  all  the  tissues. 
The  fact  is  that  the  red  respiratory  element  of  the  blood 
which  we  call  the  "  haema "  or  haemal  portion  (the 
Greek  word  for  red  blood  is  alfid)  is  here  .kept  separate 
from  the  nourishing  and  elaborating  element,  the  lymph 
or  lymphatic  portion.  So  that  we  should,  to  be  explicit, 
describe  the  blood  of  a  vertebrate  as  "  haemolymph/'  a 


340  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

conjunction  of  haema  and  lymph,  which  in  the  more 
primitive  earth-worm  and  sea-worm  have  neve  effected 
a  junction  !  In  some  closely  allied  marine  worms,  how- 
ever, a  junction  of  these  two  is  effected  in  another  way. 
We  know  that  in  the  Vertebrates  the  red  blood  corpuscles 
are  formed  by  detached  bits  of  the  same  tissue,  which 
becomes  converted  into  capillaries,  the  finest  blood- 
vessels. Now  in  several  marine  Chaetopods  or  bristle- 
footed  worms  (Glycera,  Capitella,  etc.)  the  tissue  which 
should  form  the  blood-vascular  system  and  its  red  liquid 
blood,  changes  its  mode  of  growth  ;  it  never  forms  blood- 
vessels at  all,  but  divides  into  free  red  (haemoglobinous) 
cells  or  red  blood  corpuscles,  which  float  in  the  lymph  of 
the  ccelom.  There  is  no  blood-vascular  system  produced 
in  these  worms,  but  the  "  cells  "  of  the  tissue  which  would 
in  other  worms  form  blood-vessels  break  up  into  red 
corpuscles,  which,  mixing  with  the  lymph,  bring  it  into 
the  condition  of  "  haemolymph,"  identical  with  the  blood 
of  Vertebrates  ! 

In  the  molluscs,  snails,  whelks,  oysters,  clams,  and 
cuttle-fishes  there  is  a  further  variation.  The  same  two 
fluids  and  two  systems  of  spaces  are  present  as  in  the 
earth-worm,  but  the  ccelomic  space  and  fluid  have  been 
nearly  blocked  up  and  obliterated  by  the  swelling-up  and 
great  size  of  the  proper  haemal  vessels.  Only  in  rare 
cases  is  the  blood  of  molluscs  coloured  red  by  haemo- 
globin, usually  it  is  of  a  pale  blue  colour.  There  is  still 
left  a  pericardial  ccelom,  a  space  around  the  heart, 
and  from  this  some  fine  lymph-holding  vessels  ramify 
amongst  the  tissues,  but  the  chief  spaces  in  the  body 
are  dilated  parts  of  the  true  haemal  system.  In  Insects 
and  Crustacea  (say  cockroach  and  lobster)  this  process  is 
carried  still  further.  The  great  ccelom,  so  well  developed 
in  the  Chsetopod  worms,  and  the  Sea-urchins  and 


THE  LYMPH  AND  LYMPHATIC  SYSTEM     341 

Star-fishes,  and  retaining  quite  a  large  development  also 
in  the  Vertebrates,  is  nowhere  to  be  found.  The  swollen 
blood-vessels  have  squeezed  it  out  of  existence,  except 
for  certain  sack-like  remnants  which  enclose  separately 
the  ovaries,  and  the  testes,  and  the  kidneys,  and  have 
each  its  opening  to  the  exterior  conveying  the  products 
of  those  important  organs  to  the  outer  world.  Thus  we 
gain  a  brief  insight  into  the  true  history  of  the  lymphatic 
system  and  its  vicissitudes  in  the  lower  animals  and 
in  man. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 
THE  BLOOD  AND  ITS  CIRCULATION 

RED,  crimson,  scarlet,  hot,  the  river  of  life,  the 
carrier  of  all  that  is  good  and  all  that  is  bad 
by  its  myriad  streams  through  our  bodies  ;  the  rarest, 
most  precious,  most  gorgeous  of  fluids;  the  daughter  of 
the  salt  ocean,  finer  and  more  worshipful  even  than  the 
waters  of  the  great  mother,  the  sea  ;  the  badge  of  horror 
and  of  accursed  cruelty,  yet  also  the  emblem  of  nobility, 
of  generosity,  of  all  that  is  near  and  dear,  of  all  that  is 
splendid  and  beautiful  ;  the  blush  of  modesty  and  the 
flag  of  rage ;  the  giver  of  coral  lips  and  glowing  cheeks 
to  youth  and  health,  and  no  less  of  the  ruddy  nose 
which  women  hide  with  powder  and  men  bravely  bear 
without  concealment !  Such  is  the  blood,  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  mere  sight  of  it  has  always  had  an 
overpowering  fascination  for  mankind. 

The  wild  people  of  the  Solomon  Islands,  when  they 
see  a  drop  of  blood  flowing  from  an  accidental  scratch 
of  hand  or  foot,  say,  "  I  must  go  home  ;  some  danger  is 
at  hand ;  the  blood  has  come  to  tell  me  ! "  Sorcerers 
and  witches  of  all  times  have  endeavoured  to  procure 
a  few  drops  of  the  blood  of  their  intended  victims  in 
order  to  "  work  spells  "  upon  the  precious  fluid,  and  so, 
according  to  the  theory  of  "  contagious  magic,"  upon  the 

person   from  which  it  came.      In  Italy  to-day,  as  in  this 

342 


THE  BLOOD  AND  ITS  CIRCULATION       343 

country  a  few  hundred  years  ago,  when  some  one's  nose 
bleeds,  a  Latin  hymn  to  the  blood  (beautiful  in  its  con- 
ception) begging  it  to  stay  its  flow,  as  it  did  when  the 
soldier's  spear  pierced  the  side  of  the  crucified  Christ,  is 
sung.  In  a  village  in  the  hills  near  Naples  I  was  taken 
with  an  attack  of  nose-bleeding,  and  bathed  my  head 
with  cold  water  from  a  pretty  fountain  which  supplied 
the  people  with  its  pure  stream.  The  women  brought 
handsome  old  brass  basins  and  embroidered  cloths  of 
the  most  delicate  linen  for  my  use.  I  heard  a  strange 
chanting  behind  my  back  as  I  stooped  over  the  water, 
and  when  the  bleeding  had  ceased  I  found  that  an  old 
man  of  the  village  had  placed  two  straws  in  the  form 
of  the  cross  on  my  shoulders,  and  was  reciting  the  ancient 
Latin  hymn  to  my  overflowing  blood  !  I  obtained  after- 
wards from  a  friend  the  words  of  the  same  hymn  as  used 
in  long-ago  days  in  English  villages. 

One  primitive  race  if  not  others,  namely,  the  Austra- 
lians, take  a  very  prosaic  and  business-like  view  of  the 
blood.  They  use  it  as  an  adhesive — a  sort  of  liquid 
paste  or  gum,  always  ready  to  hand  !  In  order  to 
fasten  feathers  or  other  decoration  to  a  pole,  the 
Australian  "  black  fellow,"  without  wincing  or  hesita- 
tion, and  as  a  matter  of  course,  makes  a  cut  (with 
a  sharp  piece  of  stone  or  glass)  in  his  own  arm,  and 
uses  the  convenient  blood.  It  also  serves  them  as  paint, 
as  it  has  served  many  a  chieftain  of  European  race  for 
signing  his  name,  and  many  a  prisoner  for  writing  in 
the  absence  of  ink. 

There  is  for  some  people  a  fascination  in  the  sight  of 
blood  which  must  not  be  mistaken  for  cruelty,  although 
it  is  accompanied  by  dangerous  and  undesirable  emotion. 
Just  as  other  emotion-producing  experiences — such  as 


344  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  sight  or  hearing  of  torture,  of  hairbreadth  escapes, 
and  of  ghosts — produces  uncontrollable  repulsion  and 
horror  in  some  people,  and  to  others  (or  even  to  the 
same  people  when  in  another  state  of  health  or  mental 
balance)  actually  gives  a  pleasurable  sensation  (exquisite 
shudderings,  as  the  French  say),  so  does  the  sight  of 
blood  or  even  the  mere  hearing  of  the  word  "  blood  "  act 
differently  on  different  people.  Every  one  who  has 
witnessed  a  Spanish  bull-fight  knows  that  it  is  not  any 
desire  for,  or  enjoyment  of,  the  sight  of  pain  which 
excites  the  crowded  mass  of  spectators.  There  is  no 
"  cruelty,"  in  the  proper  sense,  in  their  state  of  mind,  no 
pleasure  in  witnessing  pain — a  thing  which,  terrible  as  it 
is  to  think  of,  yet  does  exist  naturally  in  mankind,  and 
has  to  be,  and  is,  repressed  and  absolutely  got  rid  of  in 
the  course  of  the  humanizing  education  of  civilized  man- 
kind. The  spectators  of  the  Spanish  bull-fight  are 
primarily  under  the  spell  or  fascination  of  the  sight  of 
blood,  and  in  a  less  degree  they  are  attracted  by  the 
wonderful  exhibition  of  skill  and  strength  on  the  part 
of  the  matador  and  his  troop.  The  crowd  excitedly 
acclaims  the  first  drops  of  blood  which  the  splendid  bull 
is  made  to  shed.  They  buy,  after  he  has  been  killed,  the 
paper-winged  darts  smeared  with  his  blood.  The  colour, 
the  mystery,  and  the  magnificence  of  blood  produces  in 
them  a  violent  emotion.  It  is  to  them  a  delight,  but 
only  a  single  step  separates  their  delight  from  pain  and 
actual  physical  distress.  The  most  absolutely  nauseating 
smells  are  very  nearly  identical  with  delightful  perfumes, 
and  we  all  know  how  readily  a  taste  may  be  acquired 
converting  the  former  into  the  latter — as  in  the  case  of 
the  (to  most  people)  foul-smelling  East  Indian  fruit,  the 
durian,  and  of  rotten  cheese  and  "  high "  game.  We 
also  know  that  a  sudden  revulsion  of  "feeling"  may 
occur  in  regard  to  hitherto  approved  smells  and  flavours, 


THE  BLOOD  AND  ITS  CIRCULATION       345 

so  that  headache,  vomiting,  and  even  fainting  may  be 
produced  by  a  smell  or  flavour  which  was  previously 
found  a  favourite  beyond  all  others. 

So  it  is  with  this  great  and  mysterious  thing — the 
blood.  The  sight  of  it  nearly  always  produces  emotion 
and  excitement,  but  if  these  emotions  are  not  accom- 
panied by  an  unreasoning  joy  and  delight,  they  may  result 
in  equally  unreasoning  and  uncontrollable  disgust,  horror, 
and  often  a  sudden  and  unaccountable  collapse.  Some 
time  ago  in  a  popular  lecture  on  the  colouring  matter  of 
the  blood  I  had  no  sooner  said  the  word  "  blood  "  than  a 
gentleman  in  the  front  row  fainted  and  had  to  be  carried 
out.  Men  are  more  susceptible  to  this  curious  effect  of 
the  sight  or  thought  of  blood  than  women.  Often  they 
do  not  know  that  they  are  so,  and  are  as  astonished  and 
perplexed  by  the  sudden  fainting  as  are  onlookers  and 
as  are,  for  the  matter  of  that,  physiologists  and  psy- 
chologists. It  is  a  common  experience  of  medical  men 
who  vaccinate  adults,  when  there  is  a  scare  about  small- 
pox, that  at  the  sight  of  a  tiny  drop  of  blood  caused  by 
scratching  the  arm  with  a  lancet,  men  frequently  faint, 
whilst  women  rarely  do  so.  Great,  burly,  red-coated 
soldiers,  and  also  athletic  schoolboys,  have  been  especi- 
ally noted  as  fainting  when  vaccinated.  Maid-servants 
rarely  faint  under  this  absurdly  trivial  ordeal,  whilst  the 
butler  and  the  valet  much  more  frequently  do  so.  Here 
is,  indeed,  a  curious  and  unexpected  difference  between 
men  and  women  which  I  commend  to  the  consideration 
of  those  who  are  discussing  the  desirability  of  admitting 
women  to  the  parliamentary  franchise.  It  is  an  unex- 
plained instance  of  the  influence  of  the  mind  on  the 
body,  and  until  it  is  better  understood,  one  must  not 
conclude  that  the  difference  is  a  proof  of  superior  fitness 
for  participation  in  political  affairs. 


34<5  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

I  trust  that  none  of  my  readers  may  suddenly  faint 
on  reading  this  page,  but  should  be  glad  to  hear  of  any 
experience  of  the  kind.  It  is  readily  understood  when 
the  profound  impression  produced  by  the  colour  of 
man's  blood  is  considered,  that  the  great  inquirer 
Aristotle  and  a  good  many  uninquiring  people  of  the 
present  day  should  overlook  the  fact  that  the  lower 
animals  have  blood.  The  insects,  crustaceans,  mussels, 
clams,  snails,  and  cuttle-fish,  and  many  worms  have  true 
blood  and  a  heart  and  blood-vessels,  but  in  most  of  them 
the  blood  is  colourless,  or  of  a  very  pale  blue  tint.  Hence, 
like  the  lymph  described  in  the  preceding  chapter,  it 
escapes  attention,  and  Aristotle  called  them  all  "  blood- 
less animals."  The  fact  is,  however,  that  not  only  do 
they  possess  colourless  or  pale  blue  blood,  but  that  the 
bristle-footed  worms  (earth-worms  and  river- worms  and 
marine  Annelids)  and  even  the  leeches  possess  bright 
red  blood  contained  in  a  complete  branching  network 
of  blood-vessels,  whilst  here  and  there  among  the  other- 
wise colourless-blooded  molluscs  and  crustaceans  and 
insects  we  find  isolated  instances  of  the  possession  of 
red  blood.  Thus  the  flat-coiled  pond-snail,  Planorbis, 
has  bright  red  blood,  so  have  one  or  two  bivalve  clams, 
so,  too,  has  an  insect  larva  (known  to  boys  as  a  blood- 
worm) that  of  the  midge  (Chironomus),  so,  too,  have 
some  small  fresh-water  shrimps,  and  also  a  single  species 
of  star-fish  and  one  kind  of  sea  cucumber ! 

I  explained  in  the  previous  chapter  that  the  blood  of 
the  vertebrates  may  well  be  called  hsemolymph,  since  in 
them  the  colourless,  slightly  opalescent  fluid  called 
"  lymph  "  is  continually  poured  through  certain  openings 
into  the  red  blood,  and  mixed  with  it.  In  the  earth- 
worm and  other  lower  animals  the  red-coloured  blood,  or 
its  equivalent — the  "  haema/'  as  distinguished  from  the 


THE  BLOOD  AND  ITS  CIRCULATION       347 

"  lymph " — is  held  in  a  closed  system  of  vessels,  and 
does  not  receive  any  of  the  lymph.  When  examined 
with  the  microscope,  the  blood,  or  haemolymph,  of  man 
is  found  to  consist  of  an  albuminous,  slightly  sticky 
liquid,  in  which  float  an  immense  number  of  "  corpuscles  " 
— minute  bodies,  some  rounded,  some  irregular,  some 
bun-like,  and  some  spherical.  The  most  abundant  of 
these  are  the  "  red  corpuscles,"  of  the  shape  of  buns, 
slightly  depressed  on  each  surface.  Three  thousand  two 
hundred  of  them  could  be  placed  lying  flat  side  by  side 
along  the  space  of  a  measured  inch.  They  appear  pale 
greenish-yellow  in  colour  under  the  microscope,  but  in 
quantity,  lying  one  over  the  other,  they  allow  only  red 
and  some  blue  light  to  pass  through  them,  and  so  have 
a  fine  red  colour.  They  consist  of  a  small  quantity  of 
albuminous  matter  and  water,  and  of  a  large  proportion 
of  a  red-coloured,  crystallizable,  chemical  substance  dis- 
solved in  them,  called  haemoglobin,  or  blood-red.  It  is 
this  haemoglobin  which  performs  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant duties  of  the  blood,  since  it  combines  with  the 
oxygen  of  the  inspired  air  when  the  corpuscles  are 
flowing  through  the  fine  vessels  of  the  lungs,  and 
carries  it  to  the  tissues  in  every  part  of  the 
body,  which  greedily  take  the  oxygen  from  the  red 
corpuscles. 

The  red  corpuscles  of  man's  blood  and  that  of  the 
hairy  suckling  animals — the  mammals — are  not  nucleated 
cells,  but  are  regularly  formed  and  renewed  as  they  daily 
wear  out,  as  fragments  of  larger  mother-cells,  which 
break  up  into  these  corpuscles,  in  the  marrow  of  the 
bones,  and  some  other  situations  where  they  are  found. 
In  all  other  vertebrates  the  red  blood  corpuscles  have  a 
kernel,  or  dense  nucleus,  and  are  complete  "cells," 
usually  oval,  smooth  and  flattened  in  shape — a  curious 


348  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

difference  not  easily  accounted  for.  There  are  in  a  pint 
of  the  blood  of  an  average  man  about  two  billions  of 
these  red  corpuscles,  and  the  amount  of  blood  in  the 
body  is  about  one-twentieth  of  the  total  weight  of  the 
body — say,  in  a  man  weighing  160  lb.,  about  8  Ib.  or 
pints  of  blood.  The  clear,  colourless  lymph  existing  in 
all  the  lymph  spaces  of  the  body  is  probably  about 
twelve  pints.  In  many  animals  the  red  corpuscles  are 
much  less  numerous  than  in  man  ;  for  instance,  a  drop  of 
human  blood  contains  a  thousand  times  as  many  red 
corpuscles  as  does  an  equal-sized  drop  of  frog's  blood. 
It  is  true  that  the  frog's  red  corpuscles  are  a  good  deal 
bigger  than  those  of  man,  but  the  result  is  that  the 
human  blood  is  some  hundreds  of  times  richer  in  haemo- 
globin than  the  frog's,  and  has  a  proportionately  greater 
power  of  carrying  oxygen  from  the  lungs  to  the  tissues, 
and  keeping  up  the  slow,  burning  process,  or  oxidation, 
upon  which  the  activity  of  the  body,  as  well  as  its  warmth, 
depend.  The  body  depends  upon  its  supply  of  oxygen 
as  a  steam-engine  depends  upon  the  oxygen  of  the  air, 
which  keeps  its  coal-fire  burning. 

The  pace  of  the  blood-stream  which  is  produced  by 
the  force-pump  action  of  the  contractions  or  beats  of  the 
heart  is  tremendous.  It  courses  along  at  the  rate  of  ten 
inches  in  a  second  in  the  big  arteries  and  veins,  and  it 
has  been  carefully  ascertained  by  experiment  that  a 
heartful  of  blood  (which  in  a  big  man  is  about  half  a 
pint  for  each  half  or  "  side "  of  the  heart) — or  let  us 
speak  of  a  single  corpuscle — is  driven  out  of  the  heart 
through  the  great  artery  or  aorta  to  the  most  remote 
parts  of  the  body,  and  is  back  again  at  the  heart,  after 
running  through  endless  branches  of  arteries,  smallest 
capillaries,  and  thence  into  fine  veins,  bigger  veins,  and 
the  biggest  vein,  in  twenty  to  thirty  seconds,  the  time 


THE  BLOOD  AND  ITS  CIRCULATION       349 

occupied  by  twenty-five  to  thirty  heart-beats.  The  walls 
of  the  arteries  are  firm,  though  elastic,  and  it  is  no  wonder, 
with  this  tremendous  pressure  and  pace  on  the  liquid 
within,  that  when  an  artery  is  cut  the  blood  spurts  out  to 
a  distance  of  several  feet. 

The  colourless  liquid  of  the  blood  contains,  besides 
the  red  corpuscles  floating  in  it,  others  brought  to  it  in 
the  lymph  and  derived  from  various  connective-tissue 
spaces  and  special  nodules  or  "  glands."  They  are  out- 
numbered by  the  red  corpuscles  in  the  proportion  of  five 
hundred  to  one.  They  are  colourless,  and  bigger  than 
the  red  corpuscles.  Most  of  them  continually  change 
their  shape,  and  consist  of  active,  moving  protoplasm. 
These  are  the  "  phagocytes,"  which,  besides  acting 
chemically  upon  the  constituents  of  the  blood-liquid, 
take  into  their  substance  (as  does  the  amoeba  or  proteus- 
animalcule)  and  digest  and  destroy  all  foreign  or  dead 
particles,  and  the  bacteria  which  may  find  their  way  into 
it.  They  pass  out,  forcing  their  way  through  the  ex- 
cessively thin  walls  of  the  finest  capillaries — blood- 
vessels not  wide  enough  to  admit  two  of  them  side  by 
side — and  enter,  to  the  number  of  thousands,  the  tissues 
which  have  been  wounded  or  poisoned  by  bacteria,  to 
carry  on  their  all-important  protective  "  scavenger "  or 
"  police-constable  "  work. 

Inflammation  is  the  slowing  of  the  blood-stream  by 
dilatation  of  the  vessels  at  an  injured  spot,  in  order  to 
allow  the  phagocytes  to  make  their  way  out  of  the  blood- 
stream into  the  tissues,  and  so  get  to  close  quarters  with 
the  enemy.  There  are  other  excessively  minute  dust- 
like  particles  called  "platelets,"  which  are  sometimes  very 
abundant  in  the  liquid  of  the  blood.  Besides  the  duties 
of  oxygen- carry  ing  and  scavengering  the  blood  has  other 


350  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

great  and  vitally  important  business.  It  has  to  distribute 
nutriment,  to  pick  up  waste  oxidized  chemical  products 
and  get  rid  of  them,  and  to  distribute  and  equalize  the 
heat  which  it  carries  around  the  body  like  a  perfect  hot- 
water  warming  installation. 


CHAPTER    XXXV 
FISH  AND  FAST  DAYS 

MOST  people  are  familiar  with  the  fact  that  fasting 
in  the  Christian  Church  has  from  early  times  been 
of  two  degrees — one  in  which  no  flesh  of  beast  or  bird 
or  fish,  not  even  eggs,  not  even  milk,  may  be  consumed, 
and  a  less  severe  degree  in  which  the  eating  of  fish  is 
allowed.  It  is  not  at  first  sight  clear  why  the  eating  of 
fish — and  even  of  birds  such  as  the  Barnacle  goose  and 
the  Sooty  duck,  supposed  to  be  produced  from  fish — 
has  been  permitted  by  the  Christian  Church,  since  the 
flesh  of  fish  is  highly  nourishing  and  an  excellent  sub- 
stitute for  the  meat  of  beasts  and  birds,  and  a  man  fed 
upon  it  is  far  from  suffering  the  effects  of  true  "  fasting." 
Many  races  and  out-of-the-way  people  live  entirely  upon 
vegetables  and  a  little  fish,  and  do  very  well  on  that  diet. 

It  has  been  proved  by  some  learned  inquirers  that 
there  was  a  special  significance  about  the  permission  by 
the  early  Christians  of  a  fish  diet  during  so-called 
"  fasting."  Real  and  complete  fasting,  abstention  from 
all  food,  for  a  day  or  even  a  week,  was  and  still  is 
practised  by  some  Eastern  peoples  as  a  religious  exercise. 
It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  an  ecstatic  condition  of  mind 
is  favoured  by  complete  fasting,  and  conditions  favourable 
to  illusions  of  various  kinds  are  so  produced.  But  the 

later  Christians  seem  to  have  regarded  the  partial  fasting 

351 


352  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

during  Lent  and  on  certain  days  of  the  week  as  a  sort  of 
protest  against  gluttony  and  excess,  and  there  is  no  ob- 
jection to  it  among  Protestant  Churches  excepting  that 
it  must  not  be  claimed  as  a  merit  or  the  equivalent  of 
"  good  works." 

That  fish  were,  even  in  the  most  ancient  times, 
allowed  to  be  eaten  on  fast  days  is  curious.  It  is  sug- 
gested by  some  students  of  this  subject  that  the  custom 
came  from  Syria,  and  had  to  do  with  certain  pagan 
ceremonials  and  the  worship  of  the  fish-god  Dagon.  It 
is  supposed  that  some  of  these  early  Christians  managed, 
under  the  guise  of  a  fast  of  the  Church,  to  maintain 
an  ancient  pagan  custom  and  religious  rite  connected 
with  the  Syrian  fish-god.  The  Jews  also  eat  fish  on 
Friday  evening — though  in  both  cases  the  origin  of  the 
"  fish-eating "  was  lost  sight  of  in  the  early  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era.  On  the  other  hand,  it  appears  that 
the  worshippers  of  the  fish- god  (at  any  rate,  at  a  remote 
period)  were  forbidden  to  eat  fish  as  being  sacred ;  hence 
it  seems  possible  that  the  permission  of  a  fish  diet  to 
Christians  during  days  of  fasting  was  given  as  a  means 
of  encouraging  those  who  retained  pagan  superstitions  to 
ignore  and  forget  them.  The  supposition  that  the  eating 
of  fish  on  certain  days  is  a  survival  of  a  ceremonial  ob- 
servance connected  with  fish-worship  is  the  more  probable 
explanation  of  the  custom. 

The  worship  of  fish  or  of  a  fish-god  is  one  of  the 
outcomes  of  the  old  Nature-worship — the  cult  of  Cybele 
and  Rhea,  who  in  the  Greek  Islands  became  the  great 
mother  Aphrodite  born  of  the  sea,  and  in  Syria  Ashtaroth 
(Astarte).  She  appears  also  as  Atargatis,  the  Syrian 
fish-goddess  born  from  a  fish's  egg,  and  worshipped  at 
Hierapolis ;  her  worshippers  must  not  eat  fish.  Dagon, 


FISH  AND  FAST  DAYS  353 

the  fish-god  of  the  Philistines,  belongs  to  the  same  group 
of  mythologic  inventions.  He  was  half-fish  and  half- 
human,  like  a  merman,  and  is,  in  spite  of  this  strange 
personality  identified  with  the  Greek  Adonis !  The  cult 
of  the  fish-god  was  widely  spread  in  ancient  Greece,  even 
in  Byzantine  times,  and  many  Christian  converts  were 
devotees  of  the  fish  worship.  I  have  on  my  table  a 
photograph  of  a  life-sized  fish  modelled  in  gold  which 
was  dug  up  in  1883  from  the  shores  of  a  lake  near  the 
coasts  of  the  Black  Sea.  It  was  at  one  time  supposed 
to  be  of  mediaeval  workmanship,  but  is  now  shown  to  be 
of  ancient  Greek  workmanship  (450  B.C.),  and  was  prob- 
ably a  votive  offering  connected  with  the  worship  of  the 
fish-god. 

Then,  again,  in  the  ancient  Indian  story  of  the 
Deluge  we  read  of  Manu  (who  is  the  Noah  of  that 
variety  of  the  ancient  legend)  finding  a  remarkable  young 
fish  in  a  stream  where  he  is  bathing.  The  young  fish 
(which  is  really  the  god  Vishnu  in  disguise)  can  talk,  and 
requests  Manu  to  take  care  of  it,  and  promises  him  if  he 
does  so  to  reveal  to  him  when  the  deluge  is  coming  on. 
Manu  takes  the  fish  home  and  rears  it.  He  then  is  told 
by  the  fish  to  prepare  an  ark,  and  place  on  board  useful 
animals  and  seeds  and  then  to  embark  on  it  with  his 
family.  The  ark  floats  away  in  the  flood,  guided  by  the 
sagacious  fish,  which  seizes  a  rope  and,  swimming  in 
front  of  the  ark,  tows  it  to  a  mountain  in  Armenia 
(Ararat !),  where  the  vessel  rests  whilst  the  flood  goes 
down. 

There  was  evidently  a  special  cult  of  the  fish  in 
Syria  and  the  East,  which  spread  to  Greece  and  Rome 
in  very  early  pre-Christian  times,  and  survives  in  some 
of  the  stories  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights "  about  human 
beings  being  turned  into  fish.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
23 


354  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

this  cult  should  have  lodged  itself  by  obscure  means  in 
the  practices  of  the  early  Church. 

The  most  remarkable  outcome  of  this  is  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  fish  as  the  symbol  of  Christ.  The  letters  of 
the  Greek  name  for  fish  IX0T2  (ichthus)  can  be  inter- 
preted as  an  acrostic,  the  component  letters  of  the  word 
taken  in  order  being  the  first  letters  of  the  words  'I^o-oO? 
X/OKJTC9  06ov  Tio?,  Sfortjp  (Jesous  Christos  Theou  Uios 
Soter),  which  are  in  English  "  Jesus  Christ  Son  of  God, 
Saviour."  This  coincidence  enabled  the  pagan  wor- 
shippers of  the  fish-god  to  make  their  symbol  or  "  totem  " 
(using  that  word  in  a  broad  sense)  the  symbol  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Whether  the  use  of  the  fish  and  of 
the  letters  of  the  Greek  name  for  it  was  or  was  not 
independently  started  by  the  early  Christians,  its  employ- 
ment must  have  conciliated  the  fish-worshipping  pagans, 
and  rendered  it  easy  to  bring  them  into  the  fellowship  of 
the  Christian  Church.  Hence  we  see  that  a  fish  has 
more  to  do  with  Christianity  than  appears  at  first  sight. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  whilst  the  cult  of  the  fish-god  or 
fish-goddess  may  have  involved  at  one  period  of  its 
growth  an  abstention  from  the  eating  of  fish  or  of 
particular  species  of  fish  as  being  sacred,  yet  the  very 
ancient  belief  in  "  contagious  magic "  and  the  acquire- 
ment of  the  qualities  of  a  man  or  an  animal  by  eating 
his  flesh,  may  have  in  the  end  prevailed  and  led  to  the 
eating  of  fish,  the  sacred  symbol,  on  the  fast  days  pre- 
scribed by  the  Church,  when  a  special  significance  would 
be  attached  to  such  food  as  was  sanctioned. 

The  evidence  of  the  connexion  of  the  early  Christian 
Church  with  fish  worship  becomes  convincing  when  once 
the  importance  of  the  great  secret  cult  of  the  "  Orpheists  " 
and  its  connexion  both  with  early  Christianity  and  with 
fish  worship  is  recognized. 


FISH  AND  FAST  DAYS  355 

It  has  long  been  known  that  there  is  a  special 
association  of  the  very  ancient  and  primitive  Greek  cult 
of  Orpheus,  with  the  much  later  cult  of  Christianity. 
Many  of  the  most  important  doctrines  and  practices  of 
the  widely  spread  secret  society  of  the  Orpheists  closely 
resemble  those  of  Christianity.  Carvings  and  medals 
of  Orpheus  bringing  all  animals  to  his  feet  by  his  music 
were,  by  the  earliest  Christians,  adopted  as  equally  well 
representing  Christ  the  Good  Shepherd.  But  recent 
discoveries  carry  the  matter  much  further.  Orpheus  is 
one  of  the  names  of  a  mythical  hunter  and  fisherman  of 
prehistoric  times,  who  taught  his  people  music,  and  by 
his  magic  helped  them  to  successful  catches  of  fish,  and 
to  the  "netting"  of  beasts,  as  well  as  of  fish.  His 
followers  adopted  the  fish  as  their  "totem,"  or  sacred 
animal,  and  they  represented  Orpheus  (whether  known 
by  that  or  other  names)  as  the  warden  of  the  fishes,  a 
fish-god,  and  himself  a  fish — "  the  great  fish  " — and  a 
"  fisher  of  men.'  Fishes  were  kept  in  his  temples  and 
eaten  solemnly  (at  first  in  the  raw  condition),  in  order 
to  transmit  to  his  worshippers  his  powers. 

In  Greece,  where  the  cult  of  Orpheus  was  introduced 
by  way  of  Thrace,  he  became  mixed  with,  or  made  a 
substitute  for,  Dionysus  (the  wine-god),  and  the  same 
legends  were  told  about  the  one  as  the  other.  He  and 
his  followers  are  pictured  as  wearing  a  fox's  skin 
(supposed  by  some  to  have  been  originally  the  skin  of 
a  sea-fox  or  shark),  and  the  fable  of  the  fox  and  the 
grapes,  and  the  very  ancient  story  of  the  fox  fishing 
with  his  tail,  belong  to  the  Orpheus  legends. 

Very  ancient  peoples,  earlier  than  the  Greeks  of 
classical  times,  habitually  adopted  some  animal  as  their 
totem  and  name-god — as  do  many  savage  races  to-day. 


356  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Thus,  the  Myrmidones  of  Thessaly  had  the  ant  (myrmes) 
as  their  totem,  the  Arcadians  the  bear  (arctos),  the 
Pelasgi,  who  preceded  the  other  tribes  in  Greece — the 
stork  (pelargos).  It  is  now  suggested  that  the  Hellenes, 
who  succeeded  the  Pelasgi,  and  gave  their  name  to 
Greece  (Hellas)  and  to  all  its  people,  were  so  called 
from  their  having  the  fish  (ellos,  the  mute  or  silent  one, 
a  common  term  applied  to  fish)  as  their  "  totem,"  and 
that  they  were,  in  fact,  from  the  first  worshippers  of  the 
fish-god  Orpheus,  Di-orphos,  Dagon  or  Adonis  !  Other 
"  cults  "  grew  up  among  them.  The  whole  Olympian 
company  of  gods  and  goddesses  were  fitted  out  by  poets 
and  priests  with  man-like  forms,  and  with  the  speech, 
habits,  and  passions  of  humanity.  But  the  old  deep- 
rooted  worship  of  the  primeval  fisherman  who  was 
typified  by  and  identified  with  "  the  great  fish  " — -much 
elaborated  by  its  hymns  and  mystic  ritual,  its  lore,  and 
its  legend — flourished  and  developed  wonderfully  in 
secret,  wherever  Greeks  were  found.  Its  priests  were 
missionaries  like  the  mendicant  friars  of  later  days,  and 
it  was  —  in  pre-Christian  times  —  the  most  popular 
cult  not  only  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  but  also  in 
Southern  Italy.  Hence  it  is  easy  to  understand  that 
Christianity,  by  adopting  the  fish — the  IX0TS — as  its 
emblem,  readily  received  sympathy  and  converts  from  the 
Orpheists,  and  that  the  solemn  rite  of  eating  the  fish  on 
appointed  days  was  established.  Hence  it  seems  to  have 
come  about  that  the  early  Christian  Church  permitted 
the  eating  of  fish  on  most  (but  not  on  all)  fast  days. 

Some  of  my  readers  have  seen  the  Greek  word 
for  "  a  fish "  stamped  upon  Prayer  Books,  or  possibly 
a  fish  embroidered  on  the  hangings  of  the  church  where 
they  go  to  celebrate  the  birth  and  the  passion  of 
Christ,  as  their  ancestors  have  done  for  a  thousand  years. 
And  now  they  will  understand  the  origin  of  the  associa- 


FISH  AND  FAST  DAYS  357 

tion  of  the  sacred  fish  with  Christian  ornament,  derived 
from  a  lingering  pagan  reverence  for  the  mysterious 
silvery  inhabitants  of  deep  pools,  great  rivers,  and  the 
sea.  It  is  to  such  survivals  of  the  now  dim  rituals  and 
celebrations  of  ancient  days  that  we  owe  the  joyful  holly 
and  the  mystic  mistletoe,  still  happily  preserved  in  our 
festivities  at  Christmas  and  New  Year. 

The  use  of  fish  as  a  regular  article  of  diet  is  very 
widely  spread.  Fresh  fish  is  considered  by  medical  men 
to  be  more  easily  digested  than  the  flesh  of  beasts  or 
birds,  and  a  healthy  substitute  for  the  latter.  Almost 
everywhere  where  fish  are  eaten,  the  practice  of  drying, 
and  often  of  salting,  fish,  so  as  to  store  them  for  con- 
sumption after  an  abundant  "  catch,"  has  grown  up,  and 
with  it  a  great  liking  for  the  flavours  produced  by  the 
special  chemical  changes  in  the  fish  arising  from  salting 
and  drying.  Ordinary  putrefaction  produces  very 
powerful  poisons  in  the  flesh  of  fish.  They  are  known 
as  "  ptomaines,"  and  are  produced  in  the  flesh  of  fish 
more  readily  that  in  that  of  other  animals.  But  the 
process  of  drying  in  the  sun  or  of  salting  and  smoking 
the  fish  averts  the  formation  of  these  poisons.  It  seems, 
however,  that  a  diet  of  dried  fish  is  responsible  for  a 
certain  kind  of  poisoning  in  man,  which  renders  him 
liable  to  the  attack  of  the  terrible  bacillus  of  leprosy. 
The  leprosy  bacillus  must  get  into  the  body  by  an 
abrasion  or  crack  in  the  skin,  through  contact  with  a 
person  already  infected.  It  is  known  that  the  lack  of 
fresh  vegetable  and  animal  food  produces  the  ulcerated 
unhealthy  condition  called  "  scurvy,"  and  a  "  scorbutic  " 
state  of  the  body  seems  to  be  favourable  to  the  establish- 
ment in  it  of  the  leprosy  bacillus.  The  substitution  of 
fresh  meat  and  vegetables  as  a  diet  in  place  of  dried 
fish  and  salted  meat  has  apparently  been  one  of  the 


358  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

chief  causes  of  the  disappearance  not  only  of  "  scurvy  " 
but  of  leprosy  from  Europe.  Leprosy  is  rapidly  becoming 
extinct  in  Norway.  It  still  survives  in  a  few  localities, 
and  is  common  in  several  uncivilized  communities  in 
remote  regions,  such  as  parts  of  Africa,  India,  China,  and 
the  Pacific  Islands.  In  an  earlier  chapter,  p.  292, 1  have 
referred  to  the  disease  known  as  "  scurvy,"  which  has 
become  so  uncommon  now  as  to  have  escaped  thorough 
investigation  by  modern  pathologists. 

A  few  marine  fish  are  known  which  are  highly 
poisonous  to  any  and  every  man,  even  when  cooked  and 
eaten  in  a  perfectly  fresh  condition,  and  there  are  many 
individuals  who  suffer  from  the  "  idiosyncrasy,"  as  it  is 
called,  of  liability  to  be  dangerously  poisoned  not  only 
by  the  peculiar  and  rare  fish  which  are  poisonous  to 
every  one,  but  by  any  and  every  fish  they  may  eat,  or 
by  two  or  three  common  kinds  only.  Thus,  some 
persons  are  poisoned  if  they  eat  lobster  or  crab,  or 
oysters  or  mussels,  but  can  tolerate  ordinary  fish.  Others 
are  poisoned,  without  fail,  by  mackerel  and  by  grey 
mullet,  but  not  by  sole  or  salmon.  The  symptoms 
resemble  those  produced  in  ordinary  persons  by  the 
"  ptomaines  "  of  putrid  fish,  and  seem  to  be  due  to  the 
presence  even  in  fresh  fish  of  a  kind  of  ptomaine  which 
some  persons  cannot  destroy  by  digestion,  whilst  most 
persons  can  do  so.  It  is  literally  true  that  "  What  is 
one  man's  meat  is  another  man's  poison." 

The  use  as  a  "  relish  "  of  the  little  fish,  the  anchovy 
— allied  to  the  sprat  and  the  herring — preserved  in  salt 
liquor  in  a  partially  decomposed  state,  but  not  under- 
going the  ordinary  chemical  change  excited  by  the 
bacteria  of  putrescence,  is  remarkable  and  very  widely 
spread.  Anchovy  sauce  is  made  by  mashing  up  such 
chemically  decomposed  anchovies,  and  is  one  of  the  very 


FISH  AND  FAST  DAYS  359 

greatest  and  most  approved  of  all  sauces.  The  anchovy 
is  a  Mediterranean  fish ;  it  is  taken  in  small  numbers  in 
sprat-nets  in  the  English  Channel  and  in  the  Dutch 
Zuyder  Zee.  So-called  "  Norwegian  anchovies  "  are  not 
anchovies,  but  are  small  sprats.  When  taken  fresh  and 
cooked  and  eaten,  the  anchovy  has  a  very  bitter, 
unpleasant  flavour,  which  can  be  washed  out  of  it  by 
splitting  the  fresh  fish  and  letting  it  lie  in  salt  and  water. 
It  was  this  practice  of  washing  out  the  bitterness  which 
led  the  Mediterranean  fisher-folk  to  discover  that  if  left 
for  some  time  in  moderately  strong  brine  the  anchovy 
develops  a  wonderfully  appetizing  flavour,  and  becomes 
dark  red  in  colour,  whilst  the  liquid  also  becomes  red. 
I  believe  that,  although  it  would  be  easy  to  do  so,  it  has 
not  been  ascertained  whether  the  red  colour  is  due  to  a 
direct  action  of  the  salt  upon  the  blood-pigment  of  the 
fish — as  is  the  red  colour  of  salt  beef — or  whether  it  is 
due  to  a  special  red-colour-making  bacterium,  as  is  the 
case  with  salted  dried  cod,  which  is  sometimes  rendered 
unsaleable  by  this  red  growth.  However  that  may  be, 
the  red  colour  of  the  preserved  anchovy  is  well  known, 
and  is  produced  by  dealers  by  means  of  artificial  pig- 
ments, if  not  already  naturally  present  in  the  salted  fish 
as  they  come  to  market.  No  one  would  guess  on  tasting 
a  really  fresh  bitter  anchovy  that  it  could  develop  the 
fine  flavour  which  it  does  when  soaked  in  brine  to  get 
rid  of  its  bitterness. 

Another  little  fish,  the  Bummaloh,  or  "  Bombay  duck  " 
(Harpodon),  is  taken  in  large  quantities  off  the  West 
Coast  of  India,  and  is  dried  and  used  for  the  peculiar 
flavour  thus  developed,  which  is  quite  different  from  that 
of  the  anchovy.  It  is  a  deep-water  fish,  and  is  phosphor- 
escent. The  liking  for  the  flavours  developed  in  these 
fishes  by  various  bacteria  when  specially  treated,  is 


360  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

similar  to  that  which  necessity  and  custom  has 
developed  in  our  attitude  to  cheese.  Fresh  cheese  is 
difficult  to  obtain.  Habit  has  ended  in  our  preferring 
stale,  decomposed  cheese,  which  has  developed  a  whole 
series  of  flavours  by  the  action  on  it  of  special  bacteria 
and  moulds.  The  Roman  soldiers  of  the  first  century 
used  a  small  salted  fish  (probably  enough  the  anchovy) 
to  eat  with  their  rations  of  bread,  and  such  fish  were 
usually  sold  with  bread.  Probably  the  small  "  fishes " 
which,  together  with  a  dozen  loaves  of  bread,  are  stated 
to  have  been  used  in  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the 
multitude  by  Christ,  were  salted  anchovies. 

Dealers  in  Norwegian  preserved  fish  not  only  falsely 
call  small  sprats  by  the  name  "  Anchovy  "  in  order  to  sell 
them,  but  they  have  recently  prepared  sprats  in  the 
manner  invented  by  French  fish-curers  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  young  Pilchard.  The  French  name  for  young 
Pilchard  is  "  Sardines,"  and  their  Italian  name  even  in  Sir 
Thomas  Browne's  time  (1646)  was  "  Sardinos."  The 
natural  fine  quality  of  the  sardine  and  the  skilful 
"  tinning  "  and  flavouring  of  it  by  the  French  "  curers  " 
of  Concarneau  in  Brittany,  have  made  it  celebrated 
throughout  the  world  as  a  delicacy.  The  dealers  in 
Norway  sprats — for  the  purpose  of  passing  ofT  on  the 
public  a  cheap,  inferior  kind  of  fish  as  something  much 
better — have  recently  stolen  the  French  curers'  name  of 
"  Sardine,"  and  coolly  call  their  sprats  "  Sardines."  The 
sprats  thus  cured  are  soft  and  inferior  in  quality  to  the 
true  sardines,  which  are  a  less  abundant  and  therefore 
more  costly  species  of  fish.  The  fraudulent  use  in  this 
way  of  the  name  "  Sardine"  has  been  condemned  by  the 
law  courts  in  London,  but  the  punishment  for  such  fraud  is 
so  small  and  the  profit  to  the  fraudulent  dealers  is  so  great 
that  our  French  friends  have  to  submit  to  the  iniquity. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI 
SCIENCE  AND  THE  UNKNOWN 

IT  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  although  the  first  efforts 
of  the  founders  of  the  Royal  Society  for  the  Promotion 
of  Natural  Knowledge,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
in  this  country,  and  of  other  such  associations  on  the 
Continent,  had  the  immediate  effect  of  destroying  a 
large  amount  of  that  fantastic  superstition  and  credulity 
which  had  until  then  prevailed  in  all  classes  of  society, 
and  although  that  period  marks  the  transition  from 
the  astounding  and  terrible  nightmares  of  the  Middle 
Ages  to  a  happier  condition  when  witchcraft,  sorcery, 
and  baseless  imaginings  concerning  natural  things  gave 
place  to  knowledge  founded  on  careful  observation  and 
experiment — yet  the  ugly  baleful  relic  of  savagery  died 
hard,  even  in  the  most  civilized  communities. 

In  spite  of  all  the  light  that  has  been  shed  upon 
obscure  processes,  and  all  the  triumphs  of  the  knowledge 
of  "  the  order  of  Nature,"  there  remains  to  this  day  in 
this  country  a  surprising  amount  of  ignorance,  accom- 
panied by  blind  unreasoning  devotion  to  traditional 
beliefs  in  magic,  and  a  love  of  the  preposterous  fancies 
of  a  barbarous  past,  simply  because  they  are  preposterous  ! 
"  There  is  something  in  it,"  is  a  favourite  phrase,  and  the 
words  put  by  Shakespear  into  the  mouth  of  the  demented 

Hamlet,  who   thinks  he  has   seen   and   conversed   with 

361 


362  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

a  ghost,  "  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth, 
Horatio,  than  are  dreamed  of  in  your  philosophy,"  are 
gravely  quoted  as  though  they  were  applicable  to  the 
Horatios  of  to-day.  We  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are 
dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy.  Those  who  inappro- 
priately quote  this  saying  as  though  it  were  proverbial 
wisdom  are  usually  persons  of  very  small  knowledge, 
and  mistake  their  own  limitations  for  those  of  mankind 
in  general. 

The  real  and  effective  answer  to  all  such  head- 
shakings  and  airs  of  mystery  is  to  demand  that  the 
reputed  marvel  shall  be  brought  before  us  for  examina- 
tion. The  method  of  the  disciples  of  the  founders  of 
the  Royal  Society  is  not  to  deny  or  to  assert  possibilities. 
They  hold  it  to  be  futile  to  discuss  why  such  and 
such  a  thing  should  not  exist,  and  still  worse  to  conclude 
that  it  does  exist,  or  to  hold  its  existence  to  be  prob- 
able, because  you  cannot  say  why  it  should  not  exist. 
The  real  question  is,  "  Does  it  exist  ?  Is  it  so  ?  "  And 
the  only  way  of  dealing  with  that  question  is  to  have 
the  marvel  brought  before  you  and  subjected  to  examina- 
tion and  test.  "  Nullius  in  verba  !  "  The  mere  state- 
ment of  dozens  of  witnesses  merely  gives  you  as  a 
thing  to  explain  or  account  for,  not  the  marvel  reported, 
but  the  fact  that  certain  persons  say  or  are  reported  to 
say  that  it  does.  What  you  have  to  examine,  in  the 
absence  of  the  marvel  itself,  is,  "  How  is  it  that  these 
people  make  this  statement  ?  "  You  must  inquire  into 
the  capacities  and  opportunities  of  the  witnesses.  There 
are  several  possible  and  probable  answers  to  that  inquiry. 
For  instance,  it  may  be  that  the  witnesses  are  merely 
inaccurate,  or  are  self-deceived,  or  deceived  by  the 
trickery  or  credulity  of  others,  or  are  insane,  or  are 


SCIENCE  AND  THE  UNKNOWN  363 

deliberately  stating  what  is  false.  Another  and  often 
the  least  probable  answer  is  that  the  witnesses  or 
reporters  state  what  they  do  because  it  is  the  simple 
truth.  The  statements  made  have  to  be  accounted  for 
by  one  or  other  of  these  hypotheses  or  suggestions,  and 
each  suggestion  as  to  the  origin  of  the  statements  must 
be  tested  by  reference  to  independent  facts  in  order 
to  dismiss  or  to  confirm  it. 

The  whole  of  what  is  called  "  modern  occultism," 
including  spiritualism,  second-sight,  thought  transfer- 
ence (so-called  telepathy),  crystal-gazing,  astrology, 
and  such  mysteries,  can  only  be  treated  reasonably 
in  the  way  I  have  mentioned.  We  ask  for  a  demon- 
stration of  the  occurrence  of  the  mysterious  com- 
munications or  prophecies,  or  "  raps "  or  "  levitations," 
or  whatever  it  may  be.  Lovers  of  science  have  never 
been  unwilling  to  investigate  such  marvels  if  fairly 
and  squarely  brought  before  them.  In  the  very  few 
cases  which  have  been  submitted  in  this  way  to 
scientific  examination,  the  marvel  has  been  shown  to 
be  either  childish  fraud  or  a  mere  conjurer's  trick,  or 
else  the  facts  adduced  in  evidence  have  proved  to  be 
entirely  insufficient  to  support  the  conclusion  that  there 
is  anything  unusual  at  work,  or  beyond  the  experience 
of  scientific  investigators. 

It  is  unfortunately  true  that  most  persons  are  quite 
unprepared  to  admit  the  deficiencies  of  their  own  powers 
of  observation  and  of  memory,  and  are  also  unaware  of 
their  own  ignorance  of  perfectly  natural  occurrences 
which  continually  lead  to  self-deception  and  illusion. 
Moreover,  the  capacity  for  logical  inference  and  argu- 
ment is  not  common.  The  whole  past  and  present 
history  of  what  is  called  "  the  occult  "  is  enveloped  in 


364  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

an  atmosphere  of  self-deception  and  of  readiness  to  be 
deceived  by  others  to  which  misplaced  confidence  in 
their  own  cleverness  and  power  of  detecting  trickery 
renders  many  —  one  may  almost  say  most  —  people 
victims.  The  physician  who  has  given  his  life  to  the 
study  of  mental  aberration  and  diseases  of  the  mind  is 
the  only  really  qualified  investigator  of  these  "  marvels," 
and  no  one  who  has  closely  studied  what  is  known  in 
the  domain  of  mental  physiology  and  pathology  has 
any  difficulty  in  understanding,  and  bringing  into 
relation  with  large  classes  of  established  facts  as  to 
illusions  and  mental  aberration,  the  "  beliefs  "  in  magic 
and  second-sight  which  are  here  and  there  found  flourish- 
ing at  the  present  day,  as  well  as  the,  at  first  sight 
startling,  evidence  of  highly  accomplished  men  who  have 
suffered  from  such  delusions. 

Leaving  aside  all  these  more  extreme  cases  of  what 
we  may  call  "  challenges "  to  science,  let  me  cite  one 
or  two  of  the  more  ordinary  classes  of  cases  in  which 
science  is  either  attacked  or  treated  with  disdain  by 
modern  wonder-mongers.  It  was  declared  by  a  writer 
in  the  eighteenth  century  that,  after  all,  human  know- 
ledge is  a  very  small  thing,  since  we  cannot  even  tell 
on  one  day  what  the  weather  is  going  to  be  on  the 
next ;  still  less  can  we  control  it.  That  remains 
perfectly  true  to-day,  although  by  the  hourly  observation 
and  record  of  the  movements  of  "  areas  of  depression  " 
in  the  atmosphere  and  the  telegraphic  communication 
of  these  records  from  all  parts  of  the  Atlantic  region 
of  the  northern  hemisphere  to  central  stations,  a  very 
important  degree  of  accuracy  in  foretelling  gales,  and 
even  minor  changes  of  weather,  has  been  reached.  Side 
by  side  with  this  organized  study  of  the  movements  of 
"  weather  "  we  still  have  the  so-called  "  almanacs,"  in 


SCIENCE  AND  THE  UNKNOWN  365 

which,  as  in  the  days  of  old,  certain  wizards  claim  to 
foretell  the  weather  of  a  year,  as  well  as  other  events. 
It  is  less  surprising  that  these  wizards  should  find 
believers  when  one  discovers  that  there  are  actually  well- 
to-do,  "  half-educated  "  people  in  England  who  believe 
at  this  day  that  the  delightful  clever  exhibitors  of 
mechanical  tricks  and  sleight-of-hand  are  really  (as 
they  usually  are  called)  "  conjurers  " — that  is  to  say, 
that  they  conjure  spirits  and  use  the  "  black  art."  Not  long 
ago,  having  published  my  experience  of  the  trickery  of 
"  dowsers,"  and  the  illusion  known  as  the  "  divining-rod," 
I  received  a  letter  in  which  my  correspondent  related 
that,  being  in  the  coffee-room  of  an  hotel  in  a  country 
town,  he  was  asked  by  a  man  who  was  there  to  stretch 
out  his  hand.  He  did  so,  and  the  man  placed  four 
coppers  in  a  pile  upon  it.  The  man  then  took  up  an 
empty  matchbox  which  happened  to  be  on  the  table, 
and  placed  it  over  the  coppers  as  they  lay  on  my 
correspondent's  hand.  After  an  interval  of  three  or  four 
seconds  the  man  lifted  the  matchbox,  and  the  coppers 
were  gone  !  This,  which  I  need  hardly  say  is  one  of 
the  most  common  "  conjuring  tricks  "  familiar  to  every 
schoolboy,  was,  according  to  my  correspondent,  proof  to 
him  that  the  man  possessed  powers  "  not  dreamed  of  in 
your  philosophy,"  and  that  such  powers  and  those  of 
discovery  by  use  of  the  divining-rod  and  similar  occult 
arts  are  possessed  by  many  gifted  beings  ! 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  such  credulity  is  not  very 
common — it  is  difficult  to  form  an  estimate  as  to  its 
prevalence,  for  it  breaks  out  in  different  directions  in 
different  individuals.  The  more  impudent  quack 
remedies  for  various  diseases  have  had  believers  amongst 
all  classes  of  society — and  occasionally  some  enthusiast 
bursts  out  with  indignation  in  a  letter  to  the  papers, 


366  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

complaining  that  men  of  science  or  the  medical  profes- 
sion neglect  their  duty  to  the  public  and  refuse  to 
examine  the  wonderful  cure.  In  all  these  cases  the 
cure  is  either  a  drug  which  is  perfectly  well  known  and 
practically  worthless  for  the  treatment  of  the  disease  for 
which  it  is  recommended,  or — as  in  the  case  of  the 
celebrated  "  blue  electricity  "  and  "  red  electricity  "  (non- 
sensical names  in  themselves)  sold  by  an  Italian  swindler 
as  a  cure  for  cancer  and  patronized  by  aristocratic 
ladies  and  the  late  Mr.  Stead — is  found  to  be  absolutely 
non-existent.  In  this  last  case  the  liquid  sold  in  little 
bottles  at  a  high  price  was  nothing  but  plain  water !  A 
more  respectable  case  was  the  advocacy  a  few  weeks 
ago  by  a  correspondent  in  a  morning  paper  of  a  common 
African  plant  (a  kind  of  basil)  as  a  sure  destructive  or 
warder-off  of  mosquitoes  when  grown  near  human  habita- 
tions, and  therefore  a  protective  against  malaria.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  emphatic  than  the  declaration  of 
the  value  of  this  plant  by  its  advocate.  But  a  few  days 
afterwards  a  letter  appeared  from  a  scientific  man,  giving 
an  account  of  careful  and  varied  experiments,  already 
made  and  published,  which  show  that  this  basil,  although 
containing  in  its  leaves  "  thymol,"  as  do  some  other 
aromatic  herbs,  yet  neither  when  grown  in  quantity  nor 
when  crushed  and  spread  out  in  a  room  has  any  effect 
whatever  in  checking  the  access  of  mosquitoes  and  other 
flies  !  In  this  case,  the  reputed  medical  marvel  was  to 
hand  :  it  was  dealt  with,  tested,  and,  as  they  say  in  the 
old  register  of  the  Royal  Society,  "  was  found  faulty." 


CHAPTER    XXXVII 
DIVINATION  AND  PALMISTRY 

THE  gradual  passage  of  the  race  of  man  from  the 
condition  of  "beasts  that  reason  not"  to  that  of 
"  persons  of  understanding  and  reason "  has  been  an 
immensely  long  and  a  very  painful  one.  It  is  not  yet 
complete — is  far,  indeed,  from  being  so — even  amongst 
the  most  favoured  classes  of  the  most  highly  civilized 
peoples  of  to-day.  Just  as  our  bodily  evolution  and 
adaptation  to  present  conditions  is  incomplete  and 
exhibits  what  Metchnikoff  has  called  "  disharmonies  " — 
that  is,  retentions  of  ancestral  structures  now  not  only 
useless,  but  even  positively  injurious — so  does  the  mental 
condition  attained  by  civilized  man  (if  we  do  not  limit 
our  observation  to  exceptional  instances)  exhibit  a  reten- 
tion— by  means  of  records  and  accepted  teaching — of 
beliefs  and  tendencies  which  were  among  the  first  pro- 
ducts of  the  blundering  efforts  of  human  reason,  and 
have  caused  atrocious  suffering  to  millions  of  human 
beings  in  the  long  process  of  mental  development.  At 
one  time  the  whole  race  lived  in  a  world  of  delusions 
and  fantastic  beliefs — the  outcome  of  false  or  defective 
observation  rather  than  of  false  logic.  These  false  con- 
clusions as  to  many  subjects  were  inevitable  as  soon  as 
man  began  to  reason  at  all.  It  was  the  necessary 
and  injurious  accompaniment  of  the  growing  habit  of 

"  reasoning "   by  which   the   more  fortunate   races   have 

367 


368  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

eventually  been  brought,  step  by  step,  to  correct  conclu- 
sions and  a  dominant  position  at  the  present  day.  The 
progress  from  the  almost  universal  prevalence  of  an 
enormous  system  of  preposterous  false  beliefs  or  conclu- 
sions onward  to  the  triumph  of  sound  knowledge  has  not 
only  taken  an  immense  period  of  time,  but  left  whole 
races  of  men  and  large  sections  of  the  population — even 
in  those  races  which  have  produced  individuals  remark- 
able for  their  power  of  discovering  the  truth — still  subject 
to  the  early  erroneous  conceptions  of  natural  processes 
and  of  man's  relation  to  them. 

The  conclusion  certainly  seems  to  be  justified  that  the 
most  advanced  animal  progenitors  of  mankind,  who  lived 
and  died  unreasoning,  the  mere  puppets  of  natural  forces 
which  they  neither  could,  nor  tried  to,  understand  and 
control,  were  "  happier  "  than  the  "  rebel  "  man  when  he 
first  conceived  the  notion  that  he  could  detect  cause  and 
effect,  not  only  as  between  a  blow  and  the  production  of 
a  serviceable  flint  implement,  but  in  the  beneficent  or 
injurious  relations  of  the  things  around  him  to  one 
another  and  to  himself.  Primitive  men  seem  at  a  very 
remote  period  to  have  elaborated  in  regard  to  such  vital 
matters  a  series  of  conclusions — differing  in  various  races 
according  to  place  and  circumstance — to  which  they 
were  led  by  erroneous  observation  and  imperfect  reason- 
ing— reasoning  which  was  arrested  and  distorted  by  fear, 
desire,  haste,  and  imagination.  The  word  "  magic "  is 
now  used  to  indicate  those  beliefs  and  conclusions  in  all 
their  variety,  because  the  "  magi "  or  priests  of  Zoroaster 
(Zarathustra),  the  founder  of  the  religion  of  the  ancient 
Persians,  taught  them  in  an  elaborated  form,  and 
practised  a  system  of  supposed  control  of  natural  forces 
and  of  spirits,  good  and  evil,  in  connexion  with  such 
beliefs.  Magic  is,  therefore,  defined  as  the  general  term  for 


DIVINATION  AND  PALMISTRY  369 

the  practice  and  power  of  wonder-working  as  dependent 
on  the  employment  of  supposed  supernatural  or  "  occult " 
agencies.  It  forms  a  vast  field  of  study  and  one  of  the 
greatest  interest  in  the  attempt  to  follow  out  the  history 
of  the  workings  of  the  human  mind,  its  extraordinary 
envelopment  in  error  and  delusion,  and  its  gradual 
emancipation  therefrom. 

In  origin  "  magic  "  and  "  religion  "  are  one.  The 
priest  and  the  magician  were  originally  one.  Man  tried 
to  control  Nature  by  the  use  of  spells  and  fantastic 
procedures,  based  on  imagined  powers  and  correspon- 
dences in  natural  objects.  He  excogitated  (as  a  modern 
child  sometimes  does)  a  sort  of  fancifully  assumed 
system  of  fixed  laws  of  natural  relations  and  interactions, 
of  causes  and  effects  which  were  suggested  by  superficial 
likenesses  and  wild  guesses  at  connexion  and  sequence, 
accepted  without  criticism.  Thus,  we  have  the  wide- 
spread doctrines  of  "  sympathetic  magic  "  and  of  "  con- 
tagious magic."  An  example  of  the  first  is  the  belief 
that  a  certain  tree  or  animal  is  the  sympathetic  repre- 
sentative of  a  certain  man,  and  that  as  the  one  flourishes 
or  suffers  and  dies  so  will  the  other.  This  is  extended 
into  a  belief  that  a  drawing  or  image,  or  even  an  un- 
shaped  stone,  may  sympathetically  represent  a  man  or 
an  animal.  The  American  medicine-man  draws  the 
picture  of  a  deer  on  a  piece  of  bark,  and  expects  that 
shooting  at  it  will  cause  him  to  kill  a  real  deer  the  next 
day.  He  mistakes  a  connexion  which  exists  only  in 
the  mind  of  the  sorcerer  for  a  real  bond  independent  of 
the  human  mind.  Thus,  too,  waxen  or  clay  images  of 
an  enemy  are  made  and  melted  before  fire  or  wasted  in 
water,  or  pierced  with  pins  (even  at  this  day  in  Scotland, 
as  witness  a  clay  figure  in  the  museum  at  Oxford),  in 
the  belief  that  the  enemy  himself  will  be  similarly  injured. 
24 


370  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

The  belief  in  "  contagious  magic  "  leads  to  the  procuring 
of  a  drop  of  the  blood,  or  of  a  piece  of  the  hair,  the  toe- 
nails,  the  clothing,  or  even  a  part  of  the  unconsumed 
food  of  another  individual,  in  order  that  a  sorcerer  may, 
by  acting  upon  it  or  repeating  "  incantations  "  over  it, 
influence  the  actions  and  life  of  that  individual  for  good 
or  for  ill. 

But  besides  the  many  forms  of  these  two  kinds  of 
magic,  there  is  a  later  variety  of  magic  which  grew  up 
with  what  is  not  a  primitive  belief,  namely,  the  belief  in 
the  existence  of  spiritual  beings  inhabiting  trees,  rocks, 
waters,  and  animals.  It  developed  further  with  the  later 
belief  in  the  existence  of  ghosts  or  spirits  of  the  dead. 
Fear  and  the  desire  to  control  hostile  unseen  forces  was 
the  motive  of  all  magic.  The  magician  invented  "  spells," 
"  rites,"  and  "  ceremonies "  for  controlling  and  bending 
these  spirits  to  his  will.  But  as  a  still  later  development, 
we  find  more  and  more  definitely  separated  from  the 
magician  and  his  spells — the  priest,  who  learnt  humility 
in  the  face  of  might  greater  than  his  own,  and,  abandon- 
ing the  attempt  to  coerce,  adopted  the  attitude  of 
propitiation  and  prayer,  and  prostrated  himself  before  a 
higher  power.  Thus  (as  Dr.  Marret  writes)  religion 
gradually  became  separated  from  magic,  though  often 
mixed  with  it,  and  often  retaining  magical  elements. 
Religious  cults  became  publicly  recognized,  established, 
and  respectable,  whilst  "  magic  "  became  private,  secret, 
disreputable,  and  at  last  openly  condemned  and  sup- 
pressed by  the  priests  of  religion.  The  history  of  magic 
in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America  presents  an  almost 
unlimited  field  of  study.  We  find  remarkable  agreements 
in  the  fundamental  notions  on  which  magic  is  based  in 
all  parts  of  the  world  and  also  important  differences  in 
details  and  special  developments. 

Divination   is  that  branch  of  magic  which  attempts 


DIVINATION  AND  PALMISTRY  371 

to  discover  secrets  or  to  foresee  events,  whilst  magic  in 
general  is  an  attempt  to  influence  the  course  of  events. 
Divination  is  the  process  of  attempting  to  obtain 
knowledge  of  secret  or  future  things  by  means  of  oracles, 
omens,  or  astrology.  One  of  its  methods  is  "necromancy," 
the  supposed  communication  with  the  spirits  of  the  dead. 
This  word  is  formed  from  the  Greek  words  "  nekros,"  a 
corpse,  and  "  manteia,"  divination ;  but  in  Latin  it  was 
erroneously  written  "  nigromantia,"  and  so  gave  rise  to 
the  application  of  the  name  "  the  black  art "  to  sorcery 
and  witchcraft  in  general.  By  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans  all  omens,  as  well  as  oracles,  were  regarded  as 
sent  by  the  gods,  and  in  ancient  Rome  a  large  and 
wealthy  corporation  of  augurs  who  were  constantly  con- 
sulted by  private  individuals  as  well  as  by  the  State 
existed.  They  received  regular  "  fees  "  for  their  services 
in  interpreting  and  seeking  for  omens.  The  orthodox 
belief  has  always  been  either  that  the  soothsayer  is  directly 
controlled  by  a  god  or  a  spirit,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  material  objects  inspected  and  regarded  as  signs  of  the 
future  are  controlled  by  the  gods  or  by  spirits,  so  as  to 
afford  information.  Divination  is,  and  has  been,  practised 
in  all  grades  of  civilization  and  culture,  from  the  Australian 
"  black  fellow  "  to  the  American  medium.  Amongst  its 
many  varieties  are  (i)  crystal  gazing,  a  method  similar 
to  that  of  dreams,  excepting  that  the  vision  is  set  up 
voluntarily  by  gazing  into  a  crystal  ball  or  a  basin  of 
water ;  (2)  shell-hearing ;  (3)  the  divining-rod  in  its 
various  forms;  (4)  sieve,  ring,  and  Bible  swinging;  (5) 
automatic  writing ;  (6)  sand  divination,  widely  practised 
in  Africa ;  (7)  trance-speaking ;  (8)  the  examination  of 
the  hand,  or  palmistry;  (9)  card-laying;  (10)  the  inter- 
pretation of  dreams  ;  (i  i)  the  casting  of  lots,  or  sortilege  ; 
(12)  the  drawing  of  texts  from  the  Bible  or  from  Virgil 
(the  f  sortes  Virgilianae  '  of  old  times)  ;  (i  3)  the  inspection 


372  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

of  the  entrails  of  animals  freshly  killed  (haruspication),  and 
the  study  of  footprints;  (14)  augury  by  omens,  such  as 
the  behaviour  and  cry  of  birds,  and  the  meeting  with 
ominous  animals ;  and  lastly  (i  5  and  16),  the  two  highly 
elaborated  and  pretentious  systems  of  astrology  (divina- 
tion by  the  stars)  and  geomancy  (divination  by  the  lie 
of  hills  and  rivers).  In  the  case  of  astrology  the  stars 
are  believed  not  merely  to  prognosticate  the  future,  but 
also  to  influence  it,  and  the  latter  is  the  special  feature 
of  geomancy,  practised  in  China,  where  no  house  or 
other  building  can  be  erected  without  a  certificate  as  to 
its  favourable  position  in  regard  to  "  magic "  by  the 
professional  "  geomancer,"  who  has  to  be  paid  his  fee, 
and  thus  takes  the  place  of  the  local  government  surveyor 
and  sanitary  officer  of  Western  Europe. 

In  the  exercise  of  these  arts  of  divination  there  is  no 
doubt  that,  owing  to  the  concentration  of  his  attention 
on  the  thing  to  be  inspected  the  operator  is,  in  many 
kinds  of  divination,  "  self-hypnotized,"  or  brought  into 
that  well-known  mental  condition  in  which  the  uncon- 
scious memory  and  other  special  mental  processes  are 
active,  whilst  an  exaggerated  acuteness  of  the  senses  is 
produced.  In  other  cases  the  person  who  consults  the 
"  operator  "  may  be  so  influenced.  Hallucination  of  one 
kind  and  another  is  therefore  likely  to  occur,  and  thus 
mystery  and  apparently  marvellous  results  are  not  in- 
consistent with  the  good  faith  of  the  operator.  But 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  modern  sorcerers 
who  make  money  by  their  pretended  divinations  are 
rogues  and  impostors  of  a  particularly  dangerous  and 
injurious  variety. 

Palmistry  or  chiromancy  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  the 
large  family  of  systems  for  foretelling  the  future.  It 
existed  in  China  4000  years  ago,  and  is  treated  in  the 


DIVINATION  AND  PALMISTRY  373 

most  ancient  Greek  writings  as  a  well-known  belief. 
The  gipsies  probably  brought  it  with  them  from  India. 
Those  who  practise  palmistry  pretend  that  by  the  in- 
spection and  proper  interpretation  of  the  various  irregu- 
larities and  flexion-folds  of  the  skin  of  the  hand  the 
mental  or  moral  dispositions  and  powers  of  an  individual 
can  be  discovered,  and  not  only  that,  but  that  the 
current  of  future  events  in  the  life  of  an  individual  are 
indicated  by  them.  To  this  it  is  customary  to  add 
nowadays  the  pretence  of  a  revelation  by  these  same 
markings  of  events  in  the  past  life  of  their  owner.  It  is 
only  what  we  might  have  expected  that  primitive  man, 
seeking  for  signs  and  occult  mysteries,  should  have  found 
in  the  varying  folds  of  the  hand — "  the  organ  of  organs  " 
— something  to  excite  his  tendency  to  attribute  magical 
importance  to  what  he  could  not  simply  explain.  The 
folds  of  the  skin  on  the  palmar  surface  of  the  hand  are, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  so  disposed  that  the  thick  loose  skin 
shall  be  capable  of  bending  in  grasping,  whilst  it  is  held 
down  to  the  skeleton  of  the  hand  by  fibrous  lines  of 
attachment,  so  as  to  prevent  its  slipping  and  the  con- 
sequent insecurity  of  grip.  The  swellings  bounded  by 
the  lines  of  folding  and  fixture  are  called  "  monticuli " 
by  the  palmist,  and  are  simply  subcutaneous  fat,  which 
acts  as  a  padding,  or  cushioning,  and  projects  between 
the  lines  of  fibrous  attachment  of  the  skin  to  the  deeply 
placed  bones.  They  differ  slightly  in  different  individ- 
uals, as  do  other  structures. 

These  same  lines  and  monticuli  are  present  in  the 
hands  and  feet  of  the  chimpanzee  and  other  man-like 
apes,  and  were  specially  exhibited  under  my  direction  in 
the  upper  gallery  of  the  Natural  History  Museum.  But 
no  palmist  ever  read  the  ape's  hand,  although,  according 
to  the  great  and  authoritative  treatises  on  palmistry,  it 


374  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

would  be  perfectly  easy  to  do  so,  since  every  variation 
in  the  lines  and  the  monticules  has  been  mechanically 
dealt  with,  and  its  supposed  indications  precisely  deter- 
mined by  a  formal  set  of  rules.  There  are  similar  lines 
on  that  part  of  the  foot  in  human  infants  and  in  the 
adult  apes  which  corresponds  to  the  palmar  surface.  But 
no  palmist  has  attempted  to  deal  with  them.  The  fact 
is  that  the  attributions  indicated  by  such  names  as  the 
line  of  heart,  the  line  of  life,  the  line  of  the  head,  and 
the  line  of  fortune  are  purely  arbitrary,  as  are  those  of 
the  monticules  Venus,  Jupiter,  Saturn,  the  Sun,  Mercury, 
Mars,  and  the  Moon.  In  past  times  there  have  been 
great  divergences  in  their  interpretation  by  different 
schools,  and  the  present  uniformity  is  as  devoid  of  any 
conceivable  relation  to  fact  as  were  the  former  diverg- 
ences. It  is  impossible  to  discuss  the  asserted  correlation 
of  the  lines  and  monticules  of  the  hand  with  either 
character  or  life-history,  since  no  facts  are  offered  in 
support  of  the  notion  that  there  is  such  a  correlation. 
We  have  bare  assertion,  and  nothing  more,  as  in  most 
of  the  other  doctrines  of  magic. 

The  shape  of  the  hand  and  of  the  ringers,  and  the 
softness,  hardness,  dryness,  and  moisture  of  the  skin  are 
taken  into  account  by  most  palmists.  Few,  if  any,  of 
those  who  pretend  at  the  present  day  to  "  read  "  a  hand 
are  really  acquainted  with  the  elaborate  rules  laid  down 
by  the  painstaking,  if  deluded,  people  who  endeavoured 
to  construct  a  sort  of  astrology  of  the  hand  by  assigning 
the  names  of  heavenly  bodies  to  parts  of  it.  The 
modern  professional  palmist  forms  a  judgment  and  guess 
as  to  his  or  her  client's  character  and  probable  past  and 
future  history  by  indications  and  information  obtained 
from  the  client's  face,  manner,  conversation,  costume,  and 
personal  acquaintance.  If  a  vague  prophecy  made  by 


DIVINATION  AND  PALMISTRY  375 

the  "  fortune-teller "  should  by  hazard  turn  out  to  be 
near  the  truth,  it  is  remembered  and  quoted  by  the 
client  as  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  palmistry  ;  if  it  does  not 
prove  to  be  correct,  it  is  forgotten. 

The  question  of  the  possibility  of  judging  of  the 
character  and  disposition  of  a  man  or  woman  by  the 
form  and  proportions  of  the  hand  or  the  foot  is  alto- 
gether distinct  from  that  of  the  reality  of  "  divination  " 
of  future  events  by  applying  a  system  of  rules  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  lines  and  swellings  of  the  palmar 
surface.  Persons  of  quick  perception  are  in  the  habit 
of  forming  judgments  as  to  character  from  a  first  im- 
pression of  the  face,  expression,  voice,  and  movements  of 
another  individual.  Often  such  judgments  are  erroneous, 
and  I  do  not  know  that  they  have  ever  been  proved  by  a 
large  series  of  experiments  to  be  more  frequently  right 
than  wrong.  But  it  is  possible  that  correct  indications 
may  sometimes  be  thus  obtained.  Many  people  think 
that  they  can  form  more  or  less  correct  judgments  as  to 
certain  mental  characteristics  by  observing  the  shape  and 
play  of  the  hand  and  fingers  or  of  the  foot.  There  may 
be  such  a  correlation  of  the  gesture  and  form  of  hands 
or  feet  with  some  mental  qualities,  but  obviously  this  has 
nothing  to  do  with  palmistry.  It  has  never  been  really 
proved  that  persons  of  what  is  called  "  good  birth  "  have 
smaller  hands  and  feet  than  persons  of  "  low  birth," 
although  it  is  often  assumed  that  they  have.  And  it 
has  never  been  shown  why  small  hands  and  feet  should 
go  with  "  good  birth,"  supposing  that  they  do  so,  or  why 
some  people  have  large  and  some  small  extremities. 
The  possible  effect  of  certain  manual  occupations  in 
enlarging  the  hands  of  an  individual  is,  of  course,  ex- 
cluded ;  the  question  raised  is  as  to  naturally  or  here- 
ditarily small  hands  and  feet. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
TOADS  FOUND    LIVING   IN  STONE 

IT  is  quite  true  that  one  should  not  refuse  to  entertain 
the  possibility  of  something  almost  incredible  taking 
place,  simply  because  it  is  highly  improbable  that  it  has 
taken  place.  Also  it  is  important  that  one  should  not 
accept  and  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  marvellous 
occurrence,  merely  because  a  decent  sort  of  person  has 
asserted  that  he  has  witnessed  it  and  is  satisfied  of  its 
reality.  In  a  previous  chapter  (p.  117)  we  have  seen 
how  the  story  of  the  Tree  goose  and  the  hatching  of 
geese  from  Barnacles  was  supported  by  respectable  but 
incompetent  witnesses  such  as  Gerard,  the  herbalist,  and 
Sir  Robert  Moray,  the  first  president  of  the  Royal 
Society.  There  are  many  equally  baseless  fancies 
which  are  attested  by  "  respectable "  witnesses  at  the 
present  day. 

The  statement  that  workmen  splitting  large  blocks  of 
stone  in  the  quarries  have  seen  a  toad  hop  out  of  a 
cavity  in  the  interior  of  the  stone  attracted  a  good  deal 
of  attention  in  the  earlier  half  of  last  century.  I  do 
not  know  whether  it  can  be  traced  to  any  great 
antiquity.  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  the  truth  of  the 
statement  in  its  simple  form  as  given  above.  It  has, 
I  have  no  doubt,  repeatedly  happened — as  letters  to 
newspapers  and  in  earlier  days  serious  pamphlets  record 


TOADS  FOUND  LIVING  IN  STONE          377 

— that  on  splitting  a  block  of  stone  the  workmen 
engaged  in  the  operation  have  seen  a  toad  emerge 
from  the  broken  mass.  The  fact  is  that  the  rocks  in 
many  stone  quarries  are  "  fissured  "  or  cracked,  so  that 
a  narrow  space  or  "  crack  "  extends  through  many  feet 
of  thickness  of  rock  to  the  surface,  which  is  covered  by 
vegetable  mould.  Occasionally,  owing  to  rain  and  flood, 
the  mould  is  washed  away,  and  some  of  it  carried  into 
the  cracks  or  fissures  in  the  rock.  Occasionally  a  young 
toad  is  carried  from  the  surface  into  such  a  fissure  and 
far  down  its  sides,  and  eventually  lodges  20  feet  or 
more  in  the  thickness  of  the  rock.  The  same  circum- 
stances which  have  carried  the  toad  into  the  fissure 
carry  in  also  from  time  to  time  small  worms,  grubs, 
insects,  on  which  the  toad  may  feed,  but  in  any  case 
the  far-spreading  though  narrow  fissure  will  hold  plenty 
of  air  and  moisture,  and  even  without  food  a  toad 
can  remain  alive  for  several  months,  provided  that  the 
temperature  is  about  that  of  a  cool  autumn  day,  its 
surface  kept  moist  and  the  air  also.  Hence  it  is  in 
accordance  with  recognized  conditions  that  occasionally 
quarrymen  should  "  get  out  "  a  block  of  stone  deep 
below  the  surface  in  a  stone  quarry  which  is  traversed 
by  a  fissure  or  has  a  small  natural  cavity  in  it  (as 
limestone  and  other  rocks  often  have)  communicating 
with  a  fissure,  and  that  when  they  break  the  stone 
and  accidentally  open  the  fissure  or  connected  cavity  a 
healthy  living  toad  is  found  ensconced  in  it.  The  recent 
washing  of  clay  and  powdered  stone  into  the  fissure  by 
rain  and  flood  sometimes  may  hide  its  existence  from 
the  casual  observation  of  the  workmen,  and  the  soft 
material  washed  in  may  even  be  found  fitting  closely 
to  the  toad's  body.  And  thus  it  will  appear  that 
the  toad  is  very  closely  embedded  in  the  solid 
stone. 


378  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Probably  no  one  would  have  cared  very  much  a 
couple  of  hundred  years  ago  if  toads  were  constantly 
present  in  the  centre  of  solid  stones.  Toads  were 
regarded  as  queer,  dangerous  things  connected  with 
witchcraft,  and  there  was  no  accounting  for  their 
behaviour.  The  view  taken  by  the  well-to-do  class 
would  have  been  in  those  days  (as  perhaps  it  would 
be  less  generally  to-day)  similar  to  that  of  the  Chicago 
millionaire  when  shown,  by  means  of  the  spectroscopic 
examination  of  light,  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  the 
metal  sodium  in  the  sun.  The  professor  who  took  the 
millionaire  round  his  laboratory  wished  to  interest  him 
in  the  discoveries  of  science,  and  hoped  that  he  might 
contribute  to  the  funds  necessary  to  pay  for  the  elaborate 
and  delicate  instruments  by  which  such  discoveries  are 
made.  He  showed  many  remarkable  experiments  to 
his  visitor,  and  wound  up  by  showing  him  the  two 
narrow  lines  of  yellow  light  caused  by  incandescent 
sodium.  He  showed  him  how  exactly  their  position 
in  the  spectrum  could  be  fixed  and  measured ;  how 
they  caused  two  black  lines  in  the  spectrum  of  light, 
which  was  made  to  traverse  a  flame  in  which  in- 
candescent sodium  was  present.  And  then  he  showed 
him  that  in  the  spectrum  of  the  sun's  light  there  were 
two  black  lines  (besides  thousands  of  others)  which 
exactly  coincide  with  the  two  sodium  lines ;  whilst 
others  of  the  black  lines  in  the  solar  spectrum  coincide 
with  bright  lines  given  out  by  incandescent  hydrogen, 
iron,  magnesium,  etc.  The  millionaire  followed  it  all 
and  understood  the  completeness  of  the  demonstration. 
The  professor  was  delighted  and  hopeful.  Then  the 
millionaire  said,  "  Who  the  hell  cares  if  there  is  sodium  in 
the  sun  ?  "  I  was  not  told  by  the  disappointed  professor 
(it  was  Professor  Michelson,  and  he  related  this  little 
episode  at  a  dinner  of  the  Royal  Society)  what  reply  he 


TOADS  FOUND  LIVING  IN  STONE          379 

made  to  this  inquiry  or  whether  he  was  eventually  suc- 
cessful in  his  attempt  to  secure  funds  from  the  millionaire. 
The  attitude  which  the  millionaire  took  towards  scientific 
discovery  is  not  a  natural  one,  but  the  result  of  the 
stifling  of  natural  interest  and  curiosity  by  long  con- 
centration on  the  art  and  practice  of  money-making. 
So,  too — owing  to  other  mental  pre-occupations  and 
concentrations — though  a  boy  or  a  savage  might  have 
been  puzzled  and  deeply  interested  in  the  occurrence 
of  a  live  toad  in  the  middle  of  an  apparently  solid 
piece  of  rock,  the  "  country  gentleman  "  of  the  eighteenth 
century  would  have  said,  if  the  matter  had  been  pressed 
on  his  attention,  "  Who  the  hell  cares  if  there  are  live  toads 
in  the  rocks  ?  "  And  a  large  but  decreasing  number  of 
his  representatives  to-day  would  make  the  same  remark. 

It,  however,  happened  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  a  spirit  of  inquiry  into  the  history  of 
the  crust  of  our  earth  was  set  going.  The  science  of 
geology  was  eagerly  pursued  by  many  capable  men,  both 
abroad  and  in  this  country.  The  Geological  Society  of 
London  was  founded  in  1809.  The  doctrine  of  the 
vast  age  of  the  earth  and  the  demonstration  of  succes- 
sive layers  of  deposit — forming  its  rocks  and  containing 
the  remains  of  strange  and  of  gigantic  animals  unlike 
those  now  existing — excited  widespread  interest  and 
controversy.  Buckland  introduced  the  study  of  geology 
in  Oxford.  Lyell  was  his  pupil,  and  became  the  great 
teacher  and  exponent  of  geological  theory  in  a  series  of 
masterly  treatises,  written  in  such  form  that  they 
appealed  during  half  a  century  to  educated  men  of  all 
professions  and  occupations.  The  country  clergy  and 
their  friends  gave  themselves  with  enthusiasm  to  the 
investigation  of  strata  and  the  collection  of  fossils.  Now 
came  the  opportunity  of  the  toad  embedded  in  stone ! 


380  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

It  is  not  worth  while  inquiring  who  was  the  first  to 
make  the  suggestion,  but  it  very  soon  became  one  of 
the  favourite  assertions  of  the  wonder-mongers  who  hang 
on  to  the  skirts  of  science — not  to  be  confused  with  the 
enthusiastic  nature-lover — that  the  living  toads  found  in 
blocks  of  stone,  and  sometimes  in  lumps  of  coal,  are 
thousands  of  years  old,  contemporary  with  the  geologic 
age  of  the  rocks  in  which  they  are  found  embedded, 
survivors  of  the  extinct  animals  whose  bones  and  teeth 
the  geologists  had  discovered  and  described,  also  em- 
bedded in  such  rocks  !  This  entirely  baseless  fancy 
took  root,  and  has  flourished  ever  since  the  early 
Victorian  period.  Only  a  few  months  ago  there  were 
paragraphs  in  the  papers  on  the  discovery  of  a  live  toad 
of  antediluvian  age  in  a  block  of  stone.  Old  gentlemen 
have  repeatedly  written  to  the  newspapers,  and  some- 
times privately  to  me,  describing  how  they  had,  on 
breaking  an  unusually  large  lump  of  coal  in  the  dining- 
room  coal-scuttle,  liberated  from  an  age-long  prison  an  ante- 
diluvian toad,  which  hopped  out  from  the  lump  of  coal 
in  a  marvellous  state  of  health  and  agility.  Whenever 
any  discussion  has  arisen  with  regard  to  these  state- 
ments, and  such  an  explanation  offered  as  I  have  given 
above  as  to  the  apparent  enclosure  of  a  toad  in  a  piece  of 
rock,  or  a  similar  explanation  as  to  the  encasement  of 
one  in  the  black  mud  adhering  to  lumps  of  coal  stacked 
in  sheds  or  cellars — some  of  the  would-be  believers  in 
the  immense  age  of  the  liberated  toads  appeal  to  the 
fact  that  amongst  the  most  remarkable  extinct  animals 
whose  bodies  are  found  in  ancient  strata  are  reptiles,  whilst 
others,  more  learned,  insist  on  the  well-known  prevalence 
of  the  remains  of  animals  of  the  class  Amphibia,  to 
which  the  toad  belongs,  in  the  "  Coal  Measures." 

The  answer  to    these   rash  believers    in   what    they 


TOADS  FOUND  LIVING  IN  STONE          381 

call  "  the  evidence  of  their  own  senses  "  and  the  dis- 
entombment  of  living  specimens  of  the  ancient  world 
from  lumps  of  stone  or  of  coal — apart  from  that  given 
by  the  fact  that  there  is  complete  absence  of  any  proof 
that  the  toad  before  liberation  was  really  and  truly 
encased  in  a  stony  chamber  to  which  it  could  not,  by 
any  possibility,  have  recently  gained  access — is  that  the 
common  toad,  which  is  thus  discovered  and  supposed  to 
be  a  survivor  of  long  past  geologic  ages,  is  a  modern 
production  of  Nature's  great  breeding  establishment. 
It  is  quite  easy  to  distinguish  it  from  all  other  living 
species  of  toads ;  it  is  spread  over  a  limited  area, 
existing  in  the  north  temperate  region  of  our  hemisphere 
in  many  parts  of  which  it  is  replaced  by  other  similar 
but  distinct  species.  If  we  ask  what  is  known  of  it  in 
past  ages  as  revealed  by  the  Pliocene,  Miocene,  and 
Eocene  strata,  we  find  that  it  did  not  exist  at  all  in 
the  latest  of  these,  but  was  represented  by  ancestors 
like  it,  yet  markedly  different.  Remains  of  a  kind  of 
toad  are  found  in  the  Upper  Eocene  "  phosphorite  "  of 
the  South  of  France,  and  in  1903  such  remains  were 
found  in  an  oolitic  deposit.  As  we  descend  further  the 
series  of  geologic  strata,  the  remains  of  toads  and  frogs 
cease  to  occur.  In  the  coal  measures  they  were  repre- 
sented by  ancestors  provided  with  tails  like  the  newts 
and  salamanders  of  our  own  day.  They  had  not  come 
into  existence,  nor,  probably,  had  any  creature  closely 
resembling  them,  at  that  period.  In  the  "  Coal 
Measures  "  we  find  abundant  remains  of  very  large  and 
also  of  small  animals  related  to  salamanders,  newts, 
and  less  closely  to  toads,  but  they  are  in  great  and 
important  features  of  structure  unlike  the  Amphibia  and 
Batrachia  of  to-day.  Hence  the  notion  which  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  the  excitement  caused  by  the  discovery 
of  live  toads  in  the  interior  of  rocks  or  of  coal — namely, 


382  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

that  the  creature  was  a  survivor  from  the  lost  world 
of  extinct  "  antediluvian  "  animals — falls  to  the  ground. 
It  has  no  better  claim  to  attention  than  the  similar  but 
perhaps  bolder  statement  indulged  in  from  time  to  time 
by  an  inventive  transatlantic  Press,  namely,  that  "  some 
workmen  on  blasting  a  rock  in  the  quarries  at  Barnums- 
ville  were  astonished  by  the  escape  from  a  cavity  within 
the  solid  rock  of  a  large  flying  lizard  or  pterodactyle, 
which  immediately  spread  its  wings  and  flew  out  of  sight." 

Connected  with  these  fancies  is  the  theory  that  the 
traditional  dragon  of  heraldry  and  of  the  Chinese  is  a 
memory  handed  down  to  the  present  day  from  immensely 
remote  times,  when — so  we  are  asked  to  believe — man  co- 
existed with  the  great  extinct  dragon-like  creatures  known 
as  pterodactyles  (see  "  Science  from  an  Easy  Chair,"  First 
Series  ;  Methuen,  1910).  Asa  matter  of  fact  the  heraldic 
dragon  does  not  closely  resemble  the  pterodactyle  or  other 
extinct  reptiles,  and  is  an  imaginative  creation  of  human 
artists  based  upon  the  realities  of  the  great  pythons  of 
India  and  the  little  parachute  lizard  (8  inches  long) 
of  the  same  region,  known  to  zoologists  as  Draco  volans. 
The  close  agreement  of  this  little  lizard  with  European 
heraldic  representations  of  the  dragon  is  conclusive  as  to 
the  origin  of  the  details  of  form  and  appearance  assigned 
to  that  legendary  beast,  though  the  great  size  ascribed  to 
it  and  the  terror  associated  with  it  is  traceable  to  the  great 
snakes  of  the  Far  East — "  drako  "  being  the  Greek  word  for 
a  serpent.  And  further,  there  is  very  good  ground  for  con- 
cluding that  a  long  interval  of  geologic  ages  separates  the 
disappearance  of  the  great  extinct  reptiles  and  the  ptero- 
dactyles from  the  appearance,  on  this  globe,  of  the  earliest 
man-like  apes,  and  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  latter 
could  have  handed  on  any  knowledge  of  such  extinct  rep- 
tiles to  their  descendants, even  had  they  seen  such  creatures. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
THE  DIVINING-ROD 

THE  divining-rod,  spoken  of  by  the  Romans  as 
"  virgula  divina,"  and  mentioned  by  Cicero  and 
by  Tacitus,  was  a  different  thing  altogether  from  the 
modern  forked  twig  of  the  water-finder,  and  seems  to  be 
of  immemorial  antiquity.  Its  use  in  "  divination  "  was 
similar  to  that  practised  with  a  ring  or  a  sieve  suspended 
by  a  string.  When  the  rod  is  thrown  into  the  air  and 
falls  to  the  ground,  or  when  the  suspended  object  is  set 
moving,  it  eventually  comes  to  rest,  and  when  thus  at  rest 
must  point  in  one  particular  direction.  It  was  supposed 
that  gods  or  spirits  invoked  at  the  moment  guided  the 
movement  and  final  position  of  rest,  so  as  to  make  the 
divining-rod  or  ring  or  sieve  point  to  buried  treasure,  to 
an  undetected  murderer,  or  to  a  witch  or  wizard  who  had 
used  magic  arts  to  injure  the  person  seeking  its  aid. 
Bits  of  stick  are  so  used  at  the  present  day  by  some 
savage  races.  The  notion  leading  to  its  use  is  the  same 
as  that  which  has  led  to  augury  by  inspection  of  an 
animal's  entrails,  by  the  flight  of  birds,  and  other  such 
varying  appearances.  The  notion  is  that  an  unseen 
protective  power  will,  when  properly  invoked,  interfere 
with  the  blindly  varying  thing  and  make  it  vary  so  as 
to  give  indications  either  of  hidden  objects  or  of  future 
events.  The  unseen  power  which  thus  revealed  itself 

was  primitively  supposed  to  be  that  of  a  god  or  a  spirit, 

383 


384  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

but  later  the  augur  or  intermediary  who  worked  the 
"  show  "  acquired  exclusive  importance  and  arrogated  to 
himself  mysterious  powers.  The  same  transference  of 
importance  has  come  about  in  the  case  of  the  modern 
hazel-twig  and  the  "  douser,"  who  now  claims  to  "  divine  " 
without  its  aid. 

The  tossing  of  a  halfpenny  to  decide  as  to  alternative 
courses  of  action,  still  almost  universally  prevalent  in  this 
country,  is  in  origin  (and  largely  in  actual  practice)  an 
appeal  to  supernatural  powers  to  give  an  indication  by 
interference  with  the  natural  fall  of  the  coin,  as  to  which 
of  the  alternative  courses  is  the  more  favourable  to  the 
interests  of  the  individual  who  tosses  the  coin  or  agrees 
to  follow  its  decision  if  tossed  by  someone  else.  "  Heads 
I  go ;  tails  I  stay  where  I  am."  Of  a  like  nature  is  the 
drawing  of  lots,  and  so  are  a  number  of  similar  practices 
originally  devised  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  guidance 
from  supernatural  sources.  Some  of  them  have  survived 
without  any  associated  superstition,  and  are  commonly 
used  at  the  present  day  merely  in  order  to  obtain  an 
impersonal  decision  as  to  which  of  two  or  more  claimants 
is  to  enjoy  a  certain  privilege  or  exemption,  as,  for 
instance,  when  a  coin  is  tossed  to  decide  as  to  which  side 
of  the  river  at  the  start  shall  be  occupied  by  competitors 
in  a  boat  race,  or  which  shall  have  choice  of  innings  in  a 
cricket  match,  or  as  when  lots  are  drawn  to  determine 
who  shall  enjoy  exemption  from  military  service.  But 
even  in  these  cases  there  are  large  numbers  of  men  and 
women  who  believe  that  some  mysterious  power  which 
could  possibly  be  won  over  to  their  side,  or  else  what 
they  call  "  a  special  providence,"  determines  the  issue. 
There  are,  I  need  hardly  say,  no  facts  which  justify  the 
belief  in  any  such  interruption  of  the  orderly  course  of 
nature. 


THE  DIVINING-ROD  385 

The  forked  twig  (virgula  furcata  of  the  alchemists) 
used  by  water-finders  has  another  significance  and  history. 
The  forked  twig  is  held,  one  branch  in  one  hand  and  the 
other  branch  in  the  other  hand,  by  the  explorer.  After 
a  time,  as  the  explorer  walks  along,  the  twig  suddenly, 
and  even  vigorously,  "  plunges  "  or  "  ducks  "  as  he  holds 
it.  It  seems  to  do  so  "of  its  own  accord."  The  old 
English  word  "  douse "  signifies  ducking,  dipping,  or 
plunging.  The  forked  twig  "  douses."  Hence  the 
persons  who  use  it  are  called  "  dousers."  The  belief  is 
widespread  that  this  dousing  or  plunging  of  the  forked 
twig  is  caused  by  the  presence  of  a  vein  of  metallic  ore 
in  the  ground,  or  in  other  cases  by  the  presence  of  sub- 
terranean water.  It  is  interesting  to  ascertain  what 
grounds  there  are  for  this  belief. 

The  dousing-rod  or  twig  is  first  mentioned  in  the 
fifteenth  century  by  a  writer  on  alchemy  (Basil  Valentine), 
and  in  1546  by  Agricola  (De  re  metallica),  who  says  it 
must  be  either  of  willow  or  hazel,  and  describes  its  use  in 
the  discovery  of  metalliferous  veins  and  subterranean 
water.  The  purely  fantastic  belief  on  which  its  use 
was  based  was  part  of  the  doctrine  of  "  sympathies." 
It  was  supposed  that  the  branches  of  certain  plants  were 
drawn  to  certain  "  sympathetic "  metals  in  the  earth 
beneath  them — a  supposition  suggested  by  the  down- 
ward growth  or  "  weeping  "  of  the  branches  of  trees  and 
bushes  in  some  cases.  By  the  Germans  the  forked  twig 
used  in  searching  for  metals  or  water  was  called  "  Schlag- 
ruthe,"  which  has  the  same  meaning  as  "  dousing "  or 
"  plunging  "  or  "  striking  rod."  It  was  introduced  into 
England  by  German  miners  who  were  employed  in  the 
time  of  Queen  Elizabeth  by  merchant  venturers  in  work- 
ing the  Cornish  mines — and  it  has  remained  with  us 
ever  since — though  one  hears  little  at  the  present  day  of 
25 


386  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

its  use  in  searching  for  metalliferous  deposits,  and  more 
about  the  supposed  wonderful  results  obtained  with  its 
aid  by  professional  water-finders. 

We  have  to  distinguish  the  facts  established  in  regard 
to  "  the  dousing-twig  "  from  the  inferences  and  supposi- 
tions based  upon  those  facts  by  credulous  people.  There 
is  no  room  for  doubt  that  when  the  forked  twig,  in  shape 
like  a  letter  Y  upside  down,  is  held  by  a  more  or  less 
nervous  but  perfectly  honest  person  who  takes'the  matter 
very  seriously,  and  holds  firmly  one  branch  of  the  fork  in 
one  hand  and  the  other  in  the  other  hand,  the  fingers 
well  round  it  so  as  to  bring  it  against  the  palm  of  the 
hand,  a  strange  thing  happens  after  some  minutes.  The 
twig  seems  to  the  person  holding  it  to  give  a  sudden 
movement  as  though  drawn  downwards.  If  he  or  she  is 
walking  along,  intently  awaiting  this  movement,  and 
believing  that  it  will  be  caused  by  some  subterranean 
attraction,  the  effect  is,  naturally  enough,  startling.  It 
occurs  more  readily  with  some  persons  than  with  others. 
What  is  the  explanation  of  it  ?  There  is  no  necessity 
for  supposing  that  it  is  due  to  any  mysterious  attraction 
by  hidden  water  or  metal.  It  has  been  clearly  shown 
that  it  is  due  to  fatigue  of  the  muscles  which  are  em- 
ployed in  keeping  the  hands  and  fingers  in  position. 
The  muscles  in  u£e  suddenly  relax,  and  the  hands  turn 
to  a  new  pose — one  of  rest — and  with  them  the  forked 
twig.  In  most  persons  attention  and  control  are  suffici- 
ently active  to  prevent  this  sudden  relaxation  of  the 
muscles.  But  those  who  are  liable  to  mental  absorption 
in  the  strange  procedure,  and  are  apt  to  become  half- 
dazed  by  the  solemn  sort  of  "  rite  "  in  which  they  are 
engaged,  'find  their  tired  hands  (tired,  though  they  are 
unconscious  of  it)  suddenly  turning,  and  the  twig  "  duck- 
ing "  downwards  in  a  way  which  they  can  neither  explain 


THE  DIVINING-ROD  387 

nor  control.  Such  persons  are  the  honest,  self-deceived 
"  dousers,"  who  are,  and  have  been,  sufficiently  numerous 
to  establish  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  mysterious 
agency  causing  the  twig  to  "  duck."  No  doubt  originally, 
with  complete  innocence  and  honesty,  this  mysterious 
agency  was  believed  to  be  a  sort  of  magnetic  attraction 
due  to  a  sympathy  between  the  twig  and  subterranean 
metal.  In  later  days,  without  any  attempt  to  give  a 
reason  for  the  change,  the  same  class  of  people  have 
believed  that  it  was  water  far  below  the  surface  of  the 
earth  which  was  the  cause  of  the  attraction,  and  conse- 
quent ducking  or  dousing  of  the  twig. 

Let  us  assume  for  a  moment  that  the  facts  are  as  I 
have  stated,  and  that  the  honest  "  douser  "  merely  finds 
his  forked  twig  dousing  or  ducking  because  his  hands  are 
tired  by  keeping  in  one  position.  Then  it  is  evident  that 
no  harm  would  be  done,  but  rather  a  useful  decision 
leading  to  action  would  be  determined,  by  the  belief  that 
concealed  metal  was  the  cause  of  the  "  ducking."  Digging 
must  be  commenced  somewhere,  and  the  dousing-rod 
would  only  be  tried  on  likely  ground,  so  that,  often,  the 
thing  sought  for  (whether  metal  or  water)  would  be  found 
after  prolonged  excavation  at  the  spot  indicated  by  the 
douser,  or  near  it.  If  the  digging  were  a  failure,  the 
believers  in  the  dousing-rod  would  say  that  they  had  not 
been  able  to  dig  deep  enough,  or  that  some  hostile 
agency  had  intervened  and  misled  the  "  douser,"  or  that 
he  was  in  poor  health,  and  so  "  worked  "  badly.  The 
successes  are  remembered  and  the  failures  forgotten.  So 
the  belief  in  the  dousing-twig  as  a  real  guide  to  subter- 
ranean metal  and  water  has  been  maintained,  and  all  the 
more  securely  because  there  have  been,  and  doubtless  are 
still,  many  honest,  innocent  country  people  who  truly 
believe  that  they  possess  an  exceptional  and  mysterious 


388  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

gift  in  being  able  to  experience  the  curious  ducking  action 
of  the  twig  when  they  walk  with  it  in  their  hands  in 
quest  of  this  or  that. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  the  dousing-twig  was 
used  as  a  guide  in  all  sorts  of  quests,  for  instance,  in 
searching  for  hidden  treasure  and  in  tracking  criminals ! 
In  our  own  times  it  is  chiefly  known  through  its  use  by 
professional  water-finders.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
some  of  these  gentry  are  dishonest.  They  are  not  the 
credulous  rustics  to  whom  the  dousing-twig  owes  its  long 
popularity.  They  are  often  clever  and  expert  judges 
of  the  indications  by  form  of  the  land,  lie  of  geological 
strata,  and  distribution  of  vegetation,  as  to  the  sub- 
terranean water  which  is  so  abundant  in  this  country. 
They  make  a  pretence  of  using  the  douser's  twig,  in 
order  to  obtain  employment  from  landowners  in  search 
of  a  likely  spot  for  sinking  a  well,  since  it  is  the  fact 
that  many  people  prefer  to  be  guided  by  a  sort  of 
magician  who  uses  a  supposed  mysterious  occult  agency 
rather  than  to  employ  the  honest  and  perhaps  less  acute 
geologist  who  avowedly  proceeds  in  his  search  for  water 
by  making  use  of  ascertained  facts  as  to  the  structure 
and  character  of  the  subsoil  and  deeper  strata  of  the 
district  in  which  his  services  are  called  for. 

The  believers  in  the  connexion  of  the  movement  of 
the  douser's  rod  and  the  existence  of  concealed  metal  or 
water,  have  of  late  years  started  the  theory  that  the 
twig  itself  is  of  no  value  in  the  "  experiment."  Certain 
dousers  have  declared  that  they  can  work  just  as  well 
without  it,  and  that  it  is  not  the  rod  or  twig  but  they 
themselves  who  are  sensitive  to  concealed  water  or  metal. 
They  state  that  they  feel  a  peculiar  "  sinking  "  in  the  pit 
of  the  stomach,  also  a  nervous  tremor,  and  that  their 


THE  DIVINING-ROD  389 

hands  move  spasmodically,  causing  the  rod  to  move,  and 
they  attribute  this  to  an  influence  on  the  human  body  of 
"  vibrations  "  or  possibly  "  electricity  "  from  the  concealed 
metal  or  water.  This  is  ingenious  enough ;  it  shifts  the 
seat  of  mysterious  action  from  the  simple  twig  to  the 
much  more  complex  human  body,  and  accepts  to  a  certain 
extent  what  I  have  above  stated  as  to  the  nervous 
condition  of  the  douser  and  the  fatigue  of  the  hands. 

Others,  who  have  lately  discussed  the  subject,  suggest 
that  the  douser  is  affected  not  by  any  known  kind  of 
physical  vibrations,  but  by  some  mysterious  emanation 
from  the  concealed  metals  or  water  similar  to  that  which 
they  (without  any  sufficient  evidence)  assume  to  pass 
from  one  human  being  to  another  over  long  distances, 
causing  what  has  been  called  "  second-sight," 
"  thought-reading,"  and  (in  order  to  give  an  air  of 
scientific  importance  to  it)  "telepathy."  This  may 
seem  satisfactory  to  some  people,  but  it  is  plainly  a  case 
of  attempting  to  explain  a  little-known  thing  by  reference 
to  a  still  less  known  thing — what  is  called  "  ignotum  per 
ignotius."  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  of  Dublin,  has  lately 
written  on  this  subject,  and  very  rightly  says  that  the 
real  question  to  be  decided  in  the  first  instance  is 
whether  the  modern  "  water-finders,"  who  profess  to  be 
guided  by  occult  influences,  whatever  the  nature  of  those 
influences  may  be,  are  more  successful  in  discovering 
water  than  those  who  seek  for  it  by  the  use  of  the 
known  natural  indications  of  its  presence  ;  and,  further, — 
and  this  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  important  con- 
sideration,— whether,  taking  into  account  all  the  "  ex- 
periments" made  by  the  occultist  water-finders,  both 
the  successful  and  the  unsuccessful,  the  proportion  of 
successes  is  greater  than  might  be  expected  as  a 
matter  of  chance  and  the  use  of  common  intelligence. 


390  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

That  is,  in  fact,  the  interesting  point  about  the 
persistent  belief  in  the  "  magical  "  powers  of  water-finders. 
It  is  one  of  several  more  or  less  traditional  beliefs  which 
depend  on  coincidence.  The  belief  in  birth-marks  is  of 
this  nature.  A  lizard  drops  from  the  ceiling  of  her 
room  on  to  a  woman.  A  few  weeks  afterwards  she 
bears  a  child  which  has  a  mark  upon  its  breast  more  or 
less  "  resembling "  a  lizard.  Some  people  believe  that 
the  mark  on  the  child  is  caused  by  what  is  called  "  a 
maternal  impression,"  the  influence  on  the  mother's  mind 
of  the  scare  caused  by  the  lizard  being  expressed  in  the 
mark  on  the  child's  body.  To  form  a  conclusion  as  to 
the  truth  of  this  explanation  we  require  to  know  what 
proportion  of  mothers  in  a  given  population  have  been 
startled  by  lizards,  what  proportion  of  children  are  born 
with  marks  on  them  more  or  less  "  resembling  "  a  lizard 
(there  is  much  significance  in  the  "  more  or  less  "),  and 
whether  there  are  more  children  born  with  a  lizard-like 
mark  on  the  body  from  mothers  who  have  been 
frightened  shortly  before  the  child's  birth  by  a  lizard, 
than  from  mothers  who  have  not  been  thus  frightened. 
The  inquiry  is  not  an  easy  one.  The  same  question  of 
coincidence  applies  to  water-finding.  Taking  several 
thousand  attempts  to  find  water  we  must  ask,  "  Is  the 
attempt  unsuccessful  in  a  larger  percentage  of  trials  in 
the  case  of  those  who  do  not  follow  the  indications 
of  a  dousing-rod  than  in  the  case  of  those  who  make 
use  of  it  ? "  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  admits  the  difficulty 
of  getting  at  satisfactory  statistics  in  the  matter ; 
but  is  inclined  to  think  the  dousers  are  the  more 
successful,  and  so  entertains  a  theory  of  mysterious 
agency  to  account  for  their  success.  My  own  im- 
pression is  that  in  difficult  cases  of  search  for  water 
dousers  are  as  frequently  unsuccessful  as  non- 
dousers. 


THE  DIVINING-ROD  391 

It  is  true  we  cannot  get  proper  returns  of  all  cases 
of  success  and  failure.  But  in  this  matter  of  "  water- 
finding  "  we  can  make  use  of  "  experiment,"  a  thing  which 
is  not  so  easy  in  regard  to  birth-marks — though  it  is 
related  that  the  patriarch  Jacob  made  an  experiment  of 
this  character  with  his  pealed  stakes.  Experiments  have 
lately  been  made  with  dousers  or  water-diviners  to  test 
their  powers.  These  experiments  have  been  carried  out 
both  in  Paris  and  in  the  South  of  England.  They  are 
unfavourable  to  the  pretensions  of  the  diviners. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  perform  under  perfectly  fair 
conditions  a  number  of  experiments  sufficiently  large  to 
enable  us  to  arrive  at  a  demonstration  of  the  truth  in 
this  matter.  Some  thousand  "  dousers "  should  be  put 
to  the  test  under  proper  conditions  and  guarantees,  and 
the  percentage  of  failures  and  successes  carefully  re- 
corded. This  has  not  been  done,  although  "  dousers " 
have  often  been  tested  and  found  to  be  unable  to 
discover  subterranean  water  known  to  be  present,  or 
else  have  given  erroneous  indications.  If  you  prove 
some  one  individual  "  douser "  to  be  an  impostor,  or 
else  self-deluded — the  reply  by  those  who  believe  in  the 
existence  of  the  occult  power  attributed  to  dousers  is, 
naturally  enough,  that  though  this  individual  was  an  im- 
postor, or  incapable,  yet  that  does  not  prove  that  all 
other  individuals  who  claim  to  possess  certain  peculiar 
powers  in  the  discovery  of  water  are  so.  All  that  can 
be  done  is  to  challenge  any  douser  to  come  forward  and 
establish,  in  the  presence  of  a  competent  tribunal  of 
experts,  that  he  can  indicate  in  a  given  area  the  where- 
abouts of  subterranean  water  already  known  to  the  com- 
mittee but  not  possibly  known  beforehand  to  the  douser. 

This  experiment  was  made  a  year  or  two  ago  near 


392  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Guildford  by  a  committee  of  water  engineers  and  geo- 
logists, and  also  by  a  similar  committee  in  Paris.  Only 
a  dozen  or  two  of  the  water-finding  dousers  came  for- 
ward and  submitted  to  be  thus  tested,  and  they  entirely 
failed  to  show  any  special  capacity  for  discovering  water. 
They  failed  signally.  But  then  the  believers  may,  of 
course,  retort  that  the  really  gifted  superior  dousers  had 
refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  inquiry,  and 
that  "  their  withers  are  unwrung."  The  same  kind  of 
test  was  some  years  ago  made  with  the  so-called 
"spiritualist  mediums."  A  banknote  for  ;£iooo  was 
placed  in  a  very  carefully  sealed  envelope,  and  deposited 
in  a  safe  in  a  bank.  Its  owner  advertised  his  offer  to 
present  the  note  to  any  spiritualists  who  would  correctly 
state  the  number  of  the  note.  The  offer  remained  open 
for  some  years,  but  the  spiritualists  were  unable  to  gain 
information  about  this  very  simple  matter  by  their 
methods  of  consulting  supposed  "  spirits,"  and  the  note 
was  never  claimed.  Of  course,  some  of  those  who 
believe  in  spiritualism,  maintain  that  the  genuine 
"  mediums,"  for  some  reason  not  altogether  clear,  refused 
to  make  the  attempt  to  discover  the  number.  Others  put 
forward  the  view  that  the  "  spirits  "  took  offence  at  the  pro- 
posed test,  and  refused  to  reveal  the  number.  Others, 
again,  took  the  line  that  this  was  just  one  of  the  few 
things  about  which  "  spirits  "  are  unable  to  communicate 
with  mortals,  or  are  forbidden  by  superior  order  to  reveal. 

It  is  accordingly  fairly  obvious  that  it  is  not  of 
much  use  to  take  the  trouble  to  expose  the  falsity  of 
the  pretensions  of  any  isolated  specimen  of  a  douser 
or  of  a  spirit  medium.  However  that  may  be,  some 
years  ago,  when  I  was  staying  in  an  ancient  castle  in 
the  North  of  England,  my  hostess  procured  the  attend- 
ance of  a  youth  who  had  a  great  reputation  as  a  douser, 


THE  DIVINING-ROD  393 

in  order  that  I  might  test  his  pretensions.  The  youth 
arrived  with  his  father,  and  had  half  a  dozen  Y-shaped 
hazel  twigs  ready  for  use.  The  party  staying  in  the 
castle  met  him  on  the  terrace,  a  broad  gravel  walk 
which  surrounded  the  battlements.  I  asked  him  to  walk 
round  the  castle  and  mark  in  our  presence  the  spots  at 
which  his  twig  indicated  the  presence  of  subterranean 
water.  The  circuit  was  somewhat  less  than  a  quarter 
of  a  mile,  and  he  indicated  eleven  spots.  We  placed 
obvious  marks  at  each  of  these  spots.  I  then  took  him 
into  the  castle  and,  aided  by  a  friend,  carefully  blind- 
folded him  with  pads  of  cotton-wool  over  each  orbit  and 
a  large  silk  handkerchief.  We  then  led  him  out  by  a 
circuitous  route  on  to  the  terrace  and  asked  him  to  try 
again  to  indicate  the  spots  which  he  had  just  discovered. 
He  walked  along  as  before  and  stopped  at  several  spots, 
saying  that  his  twig  indicated  water  where  he  stood. 
He  also  made  futile  efforts  by  turning  and  throwing 
back  his  head,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  some  of  the  marks 
we  had  placed  at  the  spots  previously  indicated  by  him. 
But  the  pads  of  cotton-wool  effectually  prevented  him 
from  seeing  anything.  In  no  case  (as  a  large  party  of 
onlookers  testified)  were  the  spots  indicated  on  his 
second  circuit  identical  with,  or  even  near  to,  those 
marked  in  the  first  circuit.  His  father  said  he  was 
"  upset "  by  the  blindfolding.  We  then  removed  the 
bandage,  and  took  him  into  a  large  courtyard  beneath 
and  across  which  from  one  corner  to  another  a  large 
subterranean  conduit  ran.  We  had  arranged  that  the 
water  should  be  running  in  abundance  through  this 
conduit  We  told  him  that  such  a  subterranean  channel 
existed.  He  was  left  free  and  undisturbed,  and  his  eyes 
were  not  bandaged.  But  he  failed  to  discover  the  con- 
duit altogether,  although  he  crossed  it  several  times; 
and  he  ended  by  declaring  that  his  twig  indicated  sub- 


394  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

terranean  water  at  a  spot  remote  from  the  conduit, 
where  some  large  vats  stood  for  the  purpose  of  storing 
rain-water !  All  this,  of  course,  tended  to  prove  the 
incompetence  of  the  youth  as  a  douser,  and  to  make  it 
probable  that  such  successes  as  he  had  obtained  else- 
where (and  my  hostess  stated  that  they  were  very 
numerous  and  remarkable,  and  vouched  for  by  members 
of  her  own  family)  were  due  to  imposture. 

But  a  single  case  like  this  does  not  bring  one  very 
far  on  the  way  to  deciding  the  question  as  to  whether 
there  are  persons  who  are  genuinely  and  successfully 
guided  to  the  discovery  of  subterranean  water  by  strange 
sensations  and  by  spasmodic  movements  of  their  limbs  or 
of  hazel-twigs  held  in  the  hands,  due  (as  they  declare)  to  an 
obscure  influence  which  emanates  from  subterranean  water 
and  from  buried  metal.  The  fact  is  that  we  have  in  the 
belief  in  the  guidance  of  the  douser  by  occult  influences 
a  troublesome  case  of  the  fallacy  in  reasoning  expressed 
by  the  words,  "  post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc,"  or,  to  put 
it  in  English,  "  after  this,  therefore  caused  by  this." 
Primitive  man  found  that  this  mode  of  forming  a  con- 
clusion very  often  led  to  a  correct  discovery  of  the 
connexion  between  two  events,  and  he  adopted  it  as  a 
ready  method  of  guidance,  although  it  was  frequently 
fallacious.  It  has  taken  ages,  literally  ages,  to  make 
people  discard  this  mode  of  arriving  at  a  conclusion  in 
serious  matters,  and  it  is  still  usual  in  less  vital  affairs. 
To  show  that  B  followed  upon  the  occurrence  of  A,  even 
once,  is,  of  course,  a  proper  and  useful  way  of  forming  a 
guess  or  a  suggestion  as  to  the  cause  of  B,  but  still  more 
is  your  guess  legitimate  if  the  sequence  has  occurred 
several  times  in  your  experience.  But  it  is  only  a 
guess :  a  conclusion  must  not  be  accepted  on  that  basis, 
although  lazy  and  hasty  people  do  adopt  such  con- 


THE  DIVINING-ROD  395 

elusions.  You  must  find  out  the  details  of  the  nature 
of  A  and  also  of  B,  and  if  possible  how  the  one  is 
connected  with  the  other.  And  if  you  cannot  do  that 
you  can  still  establish  your  conclusion  and  confirm  your 
guess  by  showing  that  B  invariably  follows  upon  A,  or 
that  (in  a  long  experience)  only  when  A  has  been 
present,  and  never  when  A  has  not  been  present,  has 
B  occurred.  If  you  cannot  prove  the  truth  of  your 
guess  by  this  experimental  demonstration  of  the  ex- 
clusion of  other  causes  than  A  or  by  the  experimental 
demonstration  of  the  invariable  occurrence  of  B  after  A 
has  occurred,  then  you  have  to  seek  for  evidence  of  a 
real  connexion  between  A  and  B,  though  not  an  in- 
variable one,  by  collecting  a  vast  number  of  instances  of 
the  occurrence  of  B  and  finding  out  whether  A  has 
preceded  it  in  such  a  large  proportion  of  cases  (as 
compared  with  those  in  which  B  has  occurred  without 
the  previous  occurrence  of  A)  that  the  cases  in  which  B 
follows  A  cannot  be  considered  as  accidental,  but  in- 
dicate a  real  causal  relation  of  A  to  B. 

This  is  always  a  difficult  undertaking,  whether  we 
start  with  the  guess  that  B  is  caused  by  A  or  that  it  is 
not  caused  by  A.  In  the  case  of  water-finding,  water  is 
found  at  depths  of  30  feet  to  100  feet  and  more  below 
the  surface  by  engineers  without  the  aid  of  "  dousers " 
every  day,  and  this  is  so  frequent  and  regular  a  proceed- 
ing that  the  percentage  of  cases  in  which  dousers  find 
water,  that  is  to  say  in  which  B — the  discovery  of  water 
— follows  A  (A  being  the  employment  of  a  supposed 
sensitive  douser  with  or  without  his  twig)  does  not — so 
far  as  I  am  able  to  judge  without  strict  statistical 
evidence — exceed  the  percentage  of  successes  in  search- 
ing and  digging  for  water  by  ordinary  intelligent  men 
without  the  introduction  of  A. 


CHAPTER    XL 
BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY 

r  I  ^WO  widely-spread  "  beliefs  " — in  regard  to  the 
A  complicated  and  not  generally  familiar  subject  of 
the  reproduction  of  animals — are,  in  addition  to  that 
dealt  with  in  the  last  chapter,  examples  of  the  unjustified 
and  primitive  mode  of  forming  a  conclusion  known  as 
"  post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc."  I  refer,  firstly,  to  the 
belief  (which  I  have  already  mentioned)  in  the  causation 
of  what  are  called  "  birth-marks  "  by  "  maternal  impres- 
sions," by  which  is  meant  the  seeing  of  unusual  and 
impressive  things  by  the  mother  when  with  child  ;  and, 
secondly,  to  the  belief  that  a  thoroughbred  mare  can 
be  so  affected  or  infected  by  the  sire  (say  a  zebra)  of 
one  foal  as  to  convey  to  the  foal  of  a  later  sire  (say,  a 
thoroughbred  like  herself)  marks  (such  as  stripes  on 
the  legs)  which  were  not  present  in  the  second  sire, 
though  present  in  the  first  sire.  This  supposed  occur- 
rence is  called  "  telegony,"  and  is  by  some  persons 
supposed  to  occur  in  dogs,  cattle,  and  other  animals, 
including  man,  as  well  as  in  the  horse. 

There  is  little  support  in  ordinary  experience  for  the 
belief  that  birth-marks  are  caused  by  maternal  impres- 
sions, although  some  of  those  who  are  concerned  in  a 
professional  way  with  breeding  operations  cling  to  it. 

In  very  ancient  times  we  find   that  there  was  a  belief  in 

396 


BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY  397 

it,  as  shown  by  the  story  of  the  patriarch  Jacob,  who, 
wishing  to  obtain  the  birth  of  spotted  or  parti-coloured 
lambs  from  a  herd  of  sheep,  placed  in  front  of  the 
breeding  ewes  stakes  or  rods  from  which  he  had  removed 
the  bark  in  rings,  so  as  to  make  them  parti-coloured. 
He  was  supposed  to  have  been  successful  in  this  way  in 
impressing  the  visual  sense  of  the  maternal  ewes  with 
"  parti-colouration,"  and  the  belief  was  that  they  in  con- 
sequence produced  dappled  or  parti-coloured  lambs. 
The  belief,  though  not  general,  is  widespread  among 
simple  folk  that  such  influences  can  and  do  act  on 
animals,  and  it  has  been,  and  is  by  some,  similarly  held 
that  a  human  mother  may  be  influenced  by  surrounding 
objects,  so  that  if  her  surroundings  are  beautiful  she  will 
produce  a  beautiful  child.  There  is  absolutely  no  ground 
for  this  belief — based  upon  experiment.  It  is  merely  an 
unreasoning  assumption  of  "  after  this,  therefore  because 
of  this,"  based  upon  the  incomplete  observation  of  a  few 
accidental  cases  of  vague  coincidence  and  a  tenacious 
clinging  to  the  belief  that  it  is  so  because  it  is  difficult 
to  prove  that  it  is  not  so.  No  trustworthy  investigation 
or  experiment  on  the  subject  is  on  record. 

But  this  unwarranted,  untested  belief,  originating 
among  barbarous  peoples,  has  led  further,  owing  to  the 
inveterate  love  of  marvels  still  common  among  us,  to 
the  notion  (surviving  to  the  present  day)  that  the  ir- 
regular coloured  or  obscure  marks  sometimes  found  on 
the  skin  of  a  child  at  birth,  and  vaguely  resembling  an 
animal  or  a  fruit,  or  what  not,  are  due  to  the  mother 
having  recently  seen,  under  some  sudden  and  startling 
circumstances,  the  object  which  the  "  birth-mark  "  on  the 
child  resembles.  Thus  we  have  the  following  stories 
related  in  a  recent  publication  ("  Sex  Antagonism,"  by 
Walter  Heape,  F.R.S.).  The  author  holds  that  this 


398  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

strange  influence  of  "  maternal  impressions "  is  possible 
— a  matter  of  comparatively  small  importance,  since  the 
real  question  is  not  as  to  the  "  possibility "  but  simply 
(as  in  a  whole  series  of  beliefs  as  to  more  or  less  improb- 
able occurrences)  whether  there  is  or  is  not  sufficient 
evidence  that  the  connexion  and  influence  believed  in 
actually  exists.  Mr.  Heape  relates  (without  giving  any 
detailed  evidence  whatever  in  support  of  the  conclusion 
which  he  accepts)  the  supposed  case  of  a  red  "  mark  " 
like  a  lizard  found  on  a  new-born  child's  breast  being 
"  produced  "  by  the  fall  of  a  lizard  from  the  ceiling  (the 
event  happened  in  China)  on  to  its  mother's  breast 
shortly  before  the  child's  birth.  Another  case  is  that 
of  a  woman  whose  husband  was  brought  home  from 
work  with  his  arm  lacerated  by  machinery.  Her  child 
was  born  soon  afterwards,  and  is  stated  to  have  had 
marks  on  one  arm  "  similar  to "  those  the  mother  saw 
on  the  corresponding  arm  of  her  husband.  Another 
story  is  that  of  a  lady  who  had  a  great  craving  for 
raspberries  before  her  child  was  born,  and  accordingly 
bore  a  child  with  a  red  raspberry  mark  on  its 
body ! 

In  no  case  does  Mr.  Heape  give  any  picture  of  the 
birth-mark  and  the  thing  supposed  to  be  represented  by 
it,  nor  state  that  he  has  seen  either  the  mark  or  a  picture 
of  it.  In  no  case  is  the  statement  of  the  mother  as  to 
her  having  been  "  influenced  "  as  described  in  the  narra- 
tion, tested  or  examined  in  any  way. 

These  and  similar  stories  are  related  to-day,  and 
such  stories  have  been  related  from  time  immemorial. 
But  they  are  always  "  hear-say."  The  witnesses  and 
the  facts  are  never  carefully  examined,  and  the  degree 
of  closeness  of  the  agreement  between  the  mark  and  its 
supposed  cause  are  never  really  demonstrated.  Nor  has 


BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY  399 

anyone  undertaken  a  statistical  examination  with  the 
view  of  showing  that  the  vague  agreement  of  the  mark 
with  the  arresting  object  seen  by  the  mother  is  anything 
more  than  an  accidental  coincidence,  nor  (in  regard  to 
many  such  stories)  has  it  been  proved  that  the  mother 
really  did  see  or  notice  any  such  terrifying  object  as  she 
afterwards  declares  (and  possibly  thinks)  she  did.  More- 
over, no  one  has  carefully  and  scientifically  made  crucial 
experiments  with  animals,  similar  to  that  of  the  patriarch 
Jacob.  The  experiments  and  their  record  would  not 
be  difficult  with  animals.  Though  some  farmers  may 
believe  that  such  influences  do  operate  on  their  breeding 
dams,  there  is  no  known  or  recognized  application  of 
Jacob's  method  to  the  production  of  desired  form  or 
colour  in  domesticated  animals.  We  are  not  concerned 
with  "  possibilities."  What  is  needed  is  a  series  of 
demonstrative  experiments,  or  critical  cases.  And  these 
are,  as  yet,  not  forthcoming. 

Telegony  is  the  name  given  to  the  hypothesis  that  the 
offspring  of  a  known  sire  sometimes  inherit  characters 
from  a  previous  mate  of  their  dam.  The  name  means 
reproduction  (Greek,  gonos)  influenced  by  a  remote  agent 
(Greek,  tele  =  from  afar).  There  is  no  question  about 
"  possibility  "  here.  Such  an  "  infection  "  of  a  dam  by  a 
previous  mate  is  not  improbable.  According  to  Darwin 
"  farmers  in  South  Brazil  are  convinced  that  mares  which 
have  once  borne  mules,  when  subsequently  put  to  horses, 
are  extremely  liable  to  produce  colts  striped  like  a  mule." 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Baron  de  Parana  states  that  he 
has  many  relatives  and  friends  who  have  large  establish- 
ments for  the  rearing  of  mules  where  they  obtain  from 
400  to  1000  mules  in  a  year.  In  all  these  establish- 
ments, after  two  or  three  crossings  of  the  mare  and  ass, 
the  breeders  cause  the  mare  to  be  put  to  a  horse ;  yet 


400  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  pure-bred  foals  so  produced  have  never  in  a  single 
case  resembled  either  an  ass  or  a  mule. 

A  celebrated  case  to  which  Darwin  attached  im- 
portance was  that  of  Lord  Morton's  mare,  reported  to 
the  Royal  Society  in  1820.  This  mare,  after  bearing  a 
hybrid  by  a  quagga  (a  striped  equine  related  to  the 
zebra)  produced,  to  a  black  Arabian  horse,  three  foals 
showing  a  number  of  stripes,  and  in  one  of  them  more 
stripes  were  present  than  in  the  quagga  hybrid.  This 
seems  at  first  sight  strong  evidence  in  favour  of  "  infec- 
tion "  of  the  mare  by  the  early  quagga  mate.  But  it 
appears  that  stripes  are  frequently  seen  in  high-caste 
Arab  horses,  and  colts  cross-bred  from  such  and  other 
breeds  of  horse  sometimes  present  far  more  distinct  bars 
across  the  legs  and  other  zebra-like  markings  than  were 
seen  in  the  late  offspring  of  Lord  Morton's  Arabian  mare. 
The  fact  appears  to  be  that  all  the  living  species  of  the 
horse  family  (horses,  asses,  quaggas,  and  zebras)  are 
descended  from  an  ancestry  of  "  striped "  equines,  and 
are  liable  occasionally  to  "  throw  back  "  to  their  striped 
ancestry,  more  or  less. 

Professor  Cossar  Ewart  determined  some  years  ago 
to  submit  the  matter  to  direct  experiment,  and  has 
related  his  results  in  a  book  ("  The  Penicuik  Experiments," 
1899).  The  South  African  equine  called  the  quagga, 
which  was  that  used  by  Lord  Morton,  having  become 
extinct,  Professor  Ewart  made  use  of  a  richly  striped 
Burchell's  zebra.  Thirty  mares  put  to  this  animal  pro- 
duced seventeen  hybrids,  and  subsequently  these  mares, 
put  to  horse-stallions,  produced  twenty  pure-bred  foals. 
All  the  zebra  hybrids  were  richly  and  very  distinctly 
striped.  Of  the  twenty  later  pure-bred  horse-foals  from 
the  same  mares  three  only  presented  stripe-like  markings 


BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY  401 

at  birth,  and  these  were  few  and  indistinct.  They  dis- 
appeared when  the  foal's  coat  was  shed.  Their  mothers 
were  Highland  mares.  But  the  value  of  the  faint 
striping  in  these  three  instances  as  evidence  in  support 
of  telegony  is  at  once  destroyed  by  the  fact  that  Professor 
Ewart  obtained  at  the  same  time  pure-bred  foals  from 
similar  Highland  mares  which  had  never  seen  a  zebra. 
Two  of  these  pure-bred  Highland  foals  showed  stripes 
at  birth,  and  one  acquired  stripes  later ;  and  further, 
whilst  the  stripes  on  the  foals  born  after  hybrids  had 
been  produced  by  their  mothers  disappeared  with  the 
foal's  coat,  the  stripes  on  the  three  pure-bred  colts  whose 
mothers  had  never  been  near  a  zebra  persisted  for  a 
longer  period.  Similar  experiments  confirmed  these 
results,  showing  that  traces  of  striping  are  no  more  likely 
to  occur  on  the  offspring  of  a  mare  which  has  previously 
produced  a  mule  with  a  zebra  or  an  ass,  than  on  one 
whose  dam  has  neither  seen  nor  been  near  to  a  zebra 
or  an  ass.  Lord  Morton's  case  thus  falls  to  the 
ground. 

Breeders  of  dogs  are  (or  were)  even  more  thoroughly 
convinced  of  the  fact  of  telegony  than  breeders  of  horses. 
But  Sir  Everett  Millais,  who  devoted  thirty  years  to  the 
breeding  of  dogs  and  experiments  on  this  question,  states 
that  he  has  never  seen  a  case  of  telegony.  And  recent 
experiments  of  the  most  definite  kind  support  his  con- 
clusion. Dalmatians,  deerhounds,  and  retrievers  have 
been  used  in  these  experiments.  Many  such  experiments 
in  telegony  are  accidentally  or  unwittingly  made  every 
year  with  dogs.  An  undesired  crossing  of  two  breeds 
takes  place,  but  when  subsequent  pure  breeding  takes 
place  no  "  telegonic  "  infection  of  the  mother  is  observed. 
Cases  believed  to  be  due  to  telegony  have  on  examina- 
tion proved  to  be  due  to  the  carelessness  of  stablemen, 
26 


402  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

who  have  allowed  a  dog  to  escape  temporarily  from  the 
kennels  or  to  enter  them  uninvited.  The  men  have 
attributed  the  mongrels  so  begotten  to  telegony  in  order 
to  conceal  their  negligence. 

Another  curious  case  was  that  of  a  rickety  spaniel 
puppy,  which  was  exhibited  a  few  years  ago  at  the 
Zoological  Society  and  believed  by  the  exhibitor  to  owe 
its  bandy  legs  to  "  telegonic  "  infection  of  the  mother  by 
a  dachshund,  with  which  she  was  supposed  to  have  mated 
a  year  or  more  before  being  put  to  the  father  of  the 
spaniel.  Its  true  nature  was  at  once  recognized  by  the 
experts  present,  the  bandy  legs  being  those  caused  by 
"  rickets,"  and  not  like  those  of  the  well-known  dachshund 
breed. 

It  appears  that  the  explanations  widely  prevalent  of 
many  apparently  strange  things  discussed  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  such  as  live  toads  buried  in  rocks,  the  water- 
finder's  mystic  rod,  the  coincidence  of  birth-marks  and 
maternal  impressions,  and  the  inheritance  of  offspring 
from  a  previous  mate  of  their  dam,  are  hasty  and  un- 
verified suppositions,  which  have  never  been  properly 
tested,  and  that  when  the  wonder-provoking  statements 
made  and  the  actual  facts  in  question  are  properly  and 
sufficiently  examined,  according  to  the  rules  of  evidence 
and  common  sense,  it  is  discovered  that  the  assumption 
of  occult  or  exceptional  causes  in  explanation  of  such 
strange  things  are  not  justified,  but  that  these  strange 
things  owe  their  strangeness  in  large  part  to  the  incorrect 
and  incomplete  observation  of  those  who  report  them, 
and  to  that  love  of  marvel  and  mystery  which,  like  hope, 
springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast. 

It  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  belief 


BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY  403 

in  telegony — though  not  a  proof  of  the  reality  of  tele- 
gony — that  amongst  breeders  of  horses  and  dogs  the 
selling  value  of  a  dam  which  has  borne  young  to  an 
inferior  sire  or  to  one  of  a  distinct  species,  is  largely 
diminished  as  compared  with  that  of  a  dam  which  has 
been  mated  with  a  first-rate  sire  of  her  own  breed. 
Darwin  himself  was  led,  by  his  inquiries  into  a  similar 
occurrence  in  plants,  to  favour  the  notion  that  a  sire 
could  so  "  infect  "  a  mare  that  her  offspring  by  a  later 
sire  would  in  some  instances  show  traces  of  the  characters 
of  the  earlier  sire.  The  parts  of  a  plant  which  form  the 
coverings  of  the  fertilized  ovule,  the  "  coats  "  of  the  seed 
and  the  seed-case  and  fruit,  are,  of  course,  parts  of  the 
maternal  plant.  In  each  of  the  ovules  which  grow  in 
the  central  part  of  a  flower  (the  so-called  "  pistil ")  is  an 
egg  cell  like  that  of  an  animal.  This  is  "  fertilized  "  by 
the  pollen-grains  which  are  brought  by  wind  or  by 
insects  from  the  "  stamens "  of  another  flower.  Each 
pollen-grain  thus  brought  to  the  surface  of  the  pistil 
elongates  into  a  delicate  filament,  and  penetrates  into 
it,  and  so  reaches  an  egg  cell,  with  which  it  fuses.  Then 
the  surrounding  tissues  grow  and  swell  up,  forming  the 
seed  coats  and  the  fruit.  They  are  parts  of  the  egg- 
cell-producing  or  "  mother  "  flower.  Thus  the  pulp  and 
"  rind  "  or  skin  of  an  orange  is  part  of  the  mother  plant, 
not  of  the  germs  or  young  embedded  in  the  "  pips."  It 
is  found  that  if  an  orange-flower  is  deliberately  fertilized 
by  placing  on  its  pistil  the  pollen-grains  of  a  lemon- 
flower,  not  only  are  the  ovules  of  the  orange  fertilized, 
but  the  surrounding  structures,  which  enlarge  to  form 
the  fruit  and  are  parts  of  the  orange  plant  quite  distinct 
from  the  ovules,  also  become  affected  by  the  pollen.  In 
one  well-observed  case  when  an  orange-flower  was 
fertilized  by  a  gardener  with  the  pollen  of  a  lemon-flower, 
the  skin  or  rind  of  the  resulting  fruit  was  found  to 


404  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

exhibit  stripes  of  perfectly  characterized  lemon  peel 
(having  the  colour  and  flavour  of  lemon  peel),  alternating 
with  stripes  of  the  proper  orange  peel. 

The  same  thing  has  been  observed  in  apples,  melons, 
orchids,  rhododendrons,  grapes,  maize,  and  peas,  when 
one  variety  has  been  fertilized  by  the  pollen  of  another, 
or  when  one  species  has  been  fertilized  by  the  pollen  of 
an  allied  but  distinct  species.  The  fruit  in  these  cases 
(not  simply  the  germ  or  young  plant  within  it)  has 
been  found  in  some  instances  to  have  some  of  the  colour, 
flavour,  or  shape  and  marking  of  the  fertilizing  variety 
or  species  blended  or  else  mixed  like  a  patchwork 
with  that  characteristic  of  the  fertilized  variety  or  species. 
The  egg-producing  or  mother  plant  not  merely  has  its 
ovules  fertilized,  but  its  tissues  for  some  distance  around 
are  infected  and  made  to  take  on — in  parts  of  their  living, 
growing  substance — some  of  the  quality  of  the  fertilizing 
species.  A  similar  thing  occurs,  though  rarely,  when 
cuttings  of  one  plant  are  grafted  on  to  another.  The 
living  tissue  either  of  graft  or  of  stock,  and  sometimes 
of  both,  is  affected  by  the  fusion  with  it  of  the  tissue 
of  the  second  plant  united  with  it.  And  this  appears 
to  be  a  kind  of  "  infection  " — living  particles  passing 
from  one  to  the  other,  and  producing  a  mosaic  or  patch- 
work of  the  two  kinds  of  living  substance  characteristic 
of  each  of  the  united  plants. 

If  an  individual  flower  were  to  produce  in  a  second 
year  after  its  first  fertilization  and  seed  production 
a  second  set  of  ovules  which  could  be  fertilized  by 
a  kind  of  pollen  differing  from  the  first,  it  would  not 
be  surprising  did  that  second  set  of  ovules  sometimes 
show  characteristics  due  to  the  infection  of  the  maternal 
tissues  by  the  pollen  used  in  the  first  year.  But  flowers 


BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY  405 

do  not  survive  and  produce  ovules  in  a  second  year. 
They  are  completely  used  up  each  year,  and  drop  off 
as  "  fruits "  from  the  plant  which  bears  them.  With 
many  animals,  however,  the  facts  are  otherwise.  The 
same  mother  produces  from  the  ovary  year  after  year 
successive  ovules,  and  it  would  thus  be  quite  intelligible 
that  the  fertilizing  sperm  of  one  year  should  frequently 
have  so  affected  or  infected  the  egg-producing  organ  or 
ovary  as  to  result  in  the  conveyance  to  the  later  crop 
of  egg  cells  separated  from  the  ovary,  some  of  the 
qualities  of  the  earlier  male  parent.  These  considera- 
tions warrant  the  guess  or  "  hypothesis "  of  telegony 
in  animals.  But  all  such  guesses  must  be  put  to  the 
proof,  and  not  accepted  simply  because  there  is  no 
reason  to  conclude  that  they  are  impossible.  As  things 
at  present  stand,  there  is  no  evidence,  resulting  either 
from  deliberate  experiment  or  from  exact  observation 
and  record  of  the  natural  breeding  of  animals,  to  justify 
us  in  holding,  as  an  established  fact,  that  the  offspring 
of  a  given  sire  and  dam  is,  even  in  rare  cases,  affected 
by  the  previous  mating  of  the  dam  with  another  sire. 
Naturalists  would  be  deeply  interested  in  the  production 
of  even  one  indisputable  instance  of  this  occurrence. 

In  connexion  with  this  matter  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
the  sperm  of  one  drone  (her  only  mate)  is  retained  in  an 
internal  sac  or  pouch,  alive  and  active,  in  the  queen  bee, 
for  some  four  or  five  years,  and  is  used  by  her  in  succes- 
sive seasons  for  fertilizing  her  eggs.  Similarly  it  is 
recorded  by  the  late  Lord  Avery  that  a  queen  ant  kept 
by  him  for  fourteen  years,  without  access  to  a  male  ant, 
retained  to  the  end  of  that  period  the  power  of  producing 
eggs  which  developed  into  worker  ants.  He  concluded  that 
the  sperm  received  fourteen  years  before  by  this  queen  from 
a  male  ant  remained  all  this  time  alive  and  ready  for 


406  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

use  in  her  sperm-receptacle  or  sac,  since  it  has  been 
shown  that  unfertilized  eggs  in  these  and  allied  insects 
produce  only  drones  (males). 

Many  strange  and  unwarranted  beliefs  persist  because 
mankind  prefers  to  accept  an  astonishing  assertion  as 
true  rather  than  take  the  trouble  to  see  whether  it  is  so 
or  not.  Thus  all  antiquity  and  the  later  learned  world 
wrangled  about  the  very  existence  of  Homer's  city  of 
Troy,  until  Schliemann  said,  "  Don't  talk  !  Dig  !  "  and 
with  childlike  simplicity  and  directness  uncovered  ancient 
Troy.  Thus  the  belief  as  to  St.  Swithin  and  his  forty 
days  of  rain  has  been  shown  by  the  simple  examination 
of  the  actual  records  of  rainfall  to  be  very  far  from  the 
truth,  since,  though  we  often  have  a  wet  period  in  July 
and  August,  St.  Swithin's  Day  is  nearly  as  often  free 
from  rain  in  a  wet  season  as  the  reverse.  Forty  days 
of  rain  very  rarely  indeed,  in  the  South  of  England,  have 
followed  a  wet  St.  Swithin's  Day.  The  most  amusing 
instance  of  the  pricking  of  one  of  these  bubbles  of  belief 
arose  from  the  inquiry  by  some  of  the  sham  philosophers 
at  the  Court  of  King  Charles  II  as  to  how  it  comes 
about  that  if  a  jar  holding  water  be  weighed,  and  then 
a  live  fish  be  placed  therein  without  spilling  any  of  the 
water,  and  the  jar,  with  the  fish  and  the  water  in  it,  be 
again  weighed,  there  is  found  to  be  no  increase  in  the 
observed  weight.  King  Charles,  it  is  said,  made  a  bet 
that  this  was  not  so,  and  that  there  was  nothing  to 
explain.  He  referred  the  matter  for  decision  to  the 
newly  founded  "  Royal  Society  for  the  Promotion  of 
Natural  Knowledge,"  which  at  other  times  he  had  asked 
to  give  him  information  as  to  the  magic  properties  of  the 
unicorn's  horn  and  the  cause  of  the  movements  of  the 
recently  imported  "  sensitive  or  humble  plant."  The 
believers  in  the  marvellous  disappearance  of  the  weight 


BIRTH-MARKS  AND  TELEGONY  407 

of  a  fish  placed  in  a  bowl  of  water  held  forth  at  great 
length  and  gave  ingenious  reasons  as  to  why  this  is  so. 
But  the  King  said,  "  Don't  chatter  ;  make  trial ! "  And 
the  weighing  was  done,  in  the  King's  presence,  by  some 
of  the  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society.  It  was  found  that 
the  weight  of  the  jar  with  its  contained  water  was  in- 
creased when  the  fish  was  placed  therein  by  exactly  the 
number  of  ounces  which  the  fish  weighed  when  placed 
separately  in  the  balance.  So  the  King  won  his  bet, 
and  the  sham  philosophers  were  silenced.  The  whole 
spirit  of  science,  as  contrasted  with  that  of  superstition 
and  ignorance,  is  summed  up  by  the  Royal  Society's 
motto,  "  Nullius  in  verba  "  (on  no  man's  assertion  !),  and 
the  King's  command,  "  Don't  chatter  ;  make  trial !  " 


CHAPTER    XLI 

HOW  TO  PROMOTE  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY 
BY  MONEY 

THE  fact  that  five  years  ago  Mr.  Otto  Beit,  the  brother 
of  the  late  Mr.  Alfred  Beit,  not  only  carried  out  the 
latter's  intention  of  giving  £50,000  to  the  promotion  of 
research  in  connexion  with  the  study  of  disease  and  the 
mastery  of  its  causes,  but  added  £150,000  on  his  own 
account  to  the  amount  originally  proposed,  produced 
great  satisfaction  among  scientific  men,  and  also  in  that 
large  body  of  the  public  which,  at  the  present  day, 
understands  something  of  the  importance  to  the  com- 
munity of  the  minute  and  thorough  study  of  disease,  of 
its  mode  of  access  to  man,  and  of  the  possibilities,  which 
every  day  become  brighter  and  clearer,  of  getting  rid  of 
it  altogether.  All  honour  and  gratitude  are  due  to  Mr. 
Beit  for  his  generous  gift  and  for  his  wise  appreciation  of 
the  good  which  can  be  done  by  proper  application  of 
such  a  fund.  I  have  reason  to  know  and  to  value 
the  large-minded  interest  in  science  which  was  shown 
by  the  late  Mr.  Alfred  Beit,  since  he  gave  me  £1000, 
some  twelve  years  ago,  towards  the  expenses  of 
expeditions  which  I  was  organizing  for  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  natural  history  of  Lake  Tanganyika, — 
expeditions  which  have  yielded  important  scientific 
results,  and  have  but  recently  exhausted  the  fund  then 
collected. 


HOW  TO  PROMOTE  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY    409 

It  has  often  occurred  to  me  that  wealthy  men  who 
wish  to  devote  large  sums  of  money  to  the  promotion  of 
scientific  research  find  difficulty  in  carrying  out  their 
intentions,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  do  not  know 
enough  about  the  methods  and  conditions  of  scientific 
discovery  to  enable  them  to  form  a  definite  independent 
judgment  as  to  how  to  assign  their  money,  so  as  to 
make  sure  that  it  shall  really  be  employed  in  the  most 
effective  way  towards  the  end  they  have  in  view — namely, 
the  increase  of  scientific  discovery.  They  naturally 
have  some  doubts  as  to  whether  the  old  (or  even  the 
new)  Universities  can  help  them  as  trustees  of  the  money 
when  they  see  the  importance  attached  by  the  former  to 
antiquated  methods  of  teaching  and  examination  and 
observe  their  traditional  cultivation  of  certain  favoured 
studies,  with  a  minimum  of  activity  in  research  and 
discovery.  They  mistrust  special  societies  or  individuals 
as  advisers  in  the  matter,  and  sometimes  finally  spend 
the  money  which  they  had  destined  to  be  the  means  of 
furthering  scientific  discovery  upon  a  costly  and  ill- 
considered  architectural  monstrosity  dedicated  to  science, 
but  of  little  help  to  its  progress. 

In  past  times  various  schemes  have  been  adopted  by 
benevolent  men  for  bequeathing  or  giving  their  money 
so  as  to  promote  scientific  discovery.  Very  generally 
there  has  been  a  certain  amount  of  confusion  between 
two  distinct  purposes — namely,  that  of  creating  new 
knowledge  (the  discovery  of  previously  unknown  things 
and  new  processes),  and  that  of  spreading  existing 
knowledge  amongst  an  increased  proportion  of  the 
community.  An  admirable  endowment  for  the  latter 
purpose  is  that  of  Mr.  Smithson,  a  member  of  the  family 
of  the  present  Duke  of  Northumberland,  which  was 
refused  by  the  British  Government  for  peculiar  reasons, 


410  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

and  conveyed  by  that  gentleman  to  trustees  in  the 
United  States  of  America  about  a  hundred  years  ago, 
where  the  Smithsonian  Institution  has  vastly  aided  the 
spread  of  science.  Another  valuable  endowment  which 
has  been  administered  by  special  trustees  for  a  still 
longer  period  is  that  of  the  celebrated  physician  Radcliffe, 
to  whom  we  owe  the  scientific  and  medical  library,  an 
astronomical  observatory,  and  travelling  fellowships  in 
the  University  of  Oxford.  The  greatest  sum  dedicated 
to  scientific  research  in  England  of  late  years  is  the 
noble  gift  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  sterling  made  by 
Lord  Iveagh  to  the  Lister  Institute  of  Preventive 
Medicine.  There  have  been  not  a  few  generous  donors 
of  smaller  sums  for  like  purposes. 

An  inquiry  was  set  on  foot  a  few  years  ago  in 
America  in  order  to  obtain  the  opinions  of  those  who 
had  experience  of  scientific  research  and  the  institutions 
intended  to  promote  it  in  different  countries,  as  to  the 
best  methods  to  adopt  in  order  to  effect  such  promotion. 
I  do  not  know  whether  any  report  was  published,  but  I 
remember  that  I  was  consulted  on  the  subject  by  the 
late  Professor  Simon  Newcomb,  a  foreign  member  of  the 
Royal  Society  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
scientific  discoverers  in  the  United  States.  I  am  quite 
sure  that  no  general  agreement  or  conclusion  on  the 
subject  has  been  arrived  at.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  when- 
ever any  high-minded  philanthropist  desires  to  devote  in 
this  country  a  large  sum  of  money  to  the  promotion  of 
scientific  discovery,  he  is  liable  to  come  under  the 
influence  of  highly  respectable  and  eminent  persons 
who,  although  they  have  no  acquaintance  with  the 
nature  of  scientific  discovery  and  the  way  in  which 
it  actually  takes  place,  do  not  hesitate  to  fix  up  a 
scheme  based  on  some  antiquated  and  mistaken  model. 


HOW  TO  PROMOTE  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY    411 

which  is  accepted  with  simple  faith  by  the  benevolent 
donor. 

Scientific  research  is  a  delicate  plant,  and  the  secret 
of  the  way  in  which  it  may  be  nurtured  has  not  been 
revealed  to  dignitaries  and  officials.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  some  of  the  methods  which  have  been  tried  with 
the  object  of  nurturing  scientific  discovery.  In  every 
case  the  donor  has  chosen  or  created  an  electing  body 
or  trustees  of  which  I  will  say  more  below.  He  has 
directed  this  body  to  expend  his  gift  with  a  view  to  the 
promotion  of  scientific  discovery  in  one  of  the  following 
ways:  (i)  in  awarding  prizes  for  discoveries  made; 
(2)  in  terminable  stipends  to  junior  and  senior  workers 
selected  by  the  trustees  and  called  scholars  or  fellows, 
the  stipends  being  given  on  condition  of  their  holders 
devoting  themselves  for  a  few  years  to  the  attempt  to 
make  discoveries ;  (3)  in  permanent  salaries  to  tried 
men,  who  are  thus  paid  as  professors  or  directors  of 
laboratories  and  museums ;  (4)  in  providing  specially 
designed  buildings  and  apparatus  for  research,  but  no 
salaries  for  the  workers;  (5)  in  providing,  on  whatever 
scale  the  fund  given  permits,  groups  consisting  of  a 
professor  or  director,  two  or  more  assistants,  attendants, 
building,  apparatus,  and  the  annual  income  necessary  for 
materials  of  investigation  and  maintenance  of  the  es- 
tablishment. As  to  the  trustees,  or  boards  of  electors, 
chosen  by  the  donor,  they  are  often  some  established 
scientific  society  or  some  university,  or  the  board  may 
be  specially  appointed  by  him.  The  last  is  the  best 
sort  of  body,  if  properly  constituted,  but  not  unfrequently 
the  perplexed  promoter  of  scientific  discovery  finds 
himself  assenting  to  the  constitution  of  what  is  called  "  a 
representative  body  " — say,  a  bishop,  a  town  councillor, 
a  Secretary  of  State,  a  judge,  and  a  university  professor, 


412  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

with  other  members  to  be  nominated  by  himself  or  his 
heirs.     Such  a  board  fails  from  a  want  of  knowledge. 

The  methods  of  applying  the  income  provided  by 
the  donor  are  not  always  such  as  to  produce  any  marked 
result  in  the  direction  desired  by  him.  It  is  generally 
agreed  among  scientific  workers  and  experts  that  the 
giving  of  prizes  or  rewards  for  scientific  discovery  does 
not  tend  to  increase  the  output  of  discoveries,  however 
carefully  and  justly  awarded.  Though  such  an  award 
as  the  £8000  or  £10,000  of  the  Nobel  prizes  is  a  very 
agreeable  compliment  to  the  man  so  honoured,  and  often 
richly  deserved,  no  one  would  urge  a  would-be  promoter 
of  scientific  discovery  to  devote  his  gift  to  the  foundation 
of  prizes.  And  so,  too,  with  regard  to  scholarships  or 
fellowships,  it  is  very  generally  and  rightly  held  that 
they  do  little  or  nothing  in  promoting  scientific  discovery 
when  they  are  small  in  value  and  are  only  to  be  held  for 
two  or  three  years.  When  a  young  man  has  taken  his 
university  degree  in  science  or  medicine  a  scholarship 
or  fellowship  of  £250  a  year  for  three  years  offers  no 
inducement  to  him,  if  he  is  an  able  man,  to  abandon  his 
regular  professional  career.  If  he  accepts  it,  he  will  have 
had  no  time  to  go  far  on  the  path  of  discovery  before 
it  comes  to  an  end,  and  he  will  find  at  the  end  of  his 
three  years  that  he  has  lost  that  amount  of  time  so  far 
as  his  profession  is  concerned,  and  that  there  is  no  life 
post  or  career  open  to  him  in  the  line  in  which  he  has 
spent  three  years — namely,  that  of  a  scientific  investigator. 
As  a  rule,  able  men  will  not  be  drawn  ofT  in  this  way 
from  their  professions,  but  inferior  men  may  be. 

The  man,  on  the  other  hand,  who  is  specially  gifted 
with  the  power  of  scientific  discovery  will  not  be  affected  by 
such  temporary  fellowships.  He  will  enter  on  the  career 


HOW  TO  PROMOTE  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY    413 

of  discovery  with  or  without  such  inducements.  What 
such  a  man  (and  he  is  the  only  sort  of  man  who  matters) 
really  requires,  and  should  find  open  to  him,  is  an  assured 
career.  This  must  take  the  form  in  the  first  place  of  a 
smaller  post  as  assistant  to  a  great  discoverer,  tenable 
for  twenty  years  if  need  be,  and  subsequently  a  life  post, 
with  laboratory  and  assistants,  when  he  has  proved  his 
possession  of  the  discoverer's  quality.  Hence  it  is  that 
what  the  benevolent  millionaire  who  wishes  to  promote 
scientific  discovery  should  do  is  to  provide  life  posts, 
"  professorships  "  or  "  directorships,"  for  the  really  great 
discoverers,  who  exist  often  in  cramped  conditions.  They 
should  be  of  the  value  of  £1500  to  £3000  a  year — not 
too  large  a  stipend  in  view  of  the  incomes  earned  by 
successful  professional  men  and  assigned  by  Government 
to  judges,  bishops,  colonial  governors,  senior  civil  servants, 
and  politicians — with  two  or  three  assistantships  of  £i  50 
to  £500  a  year  attached,  to  be  filled  up  by  nominations 
made  by  the  professor  himself  as  vacancies  occur.  A 
sum  of  £7500  a  year,  that  which  Mr.  Otto  Beit  has  so 
generously  given,  would  pay  for  one  professor,  with  three 
assistants,  attendants,  and  interest  on  building  and  main- 
tenance fund.  Of  course,  if  such  a  sum  were  offered  to 
an  existing  institution  where  buildings  and  other  con- 
veniences are  already  provided,  two  research  professors 
and  their  assistants  could  be  paid  for  where  one  only 
would  be  possible  if  building  and  service  had  to  be 
provided.  There  are  buildings  and  laboratories  in 
London  and  elsewhere  provided  by  beneficent  founders 
without  stipends  for  directors  and  assistants,  and  there 
are  already  a  good  many  young  graduates  drawing  ter- 
minable inadequate  stipends  in  succession  to  one  another 
from  great  foundations.  The  difficulty  is  to  bring  about 
the  combination  of  adequate  funds  for  the  chief  and  for 
the  graduated  minor  posts,  and  for  a  well-equipped 


4H  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

laboratory.  When  that  is  done,  as  it  sometimes,  though 
rarely,  is,  the  only  further  difficulty  is  how  to  choose  a 
real  man,  an  inspired,  inspiring  discoverer.  There  is 
only  one  way. 

Real  discoverers  are  extremely  rare — great  ones  are 
recognized  about  once  in  fifty  years  in  any  one  large 
branch  of  science.  There  may  be  others  wandering 
about — undiscovered  discoverers.  The  only  people  who 
can  discover  them  are  men  like  themselves.  Hence,  in 
German  universities  and  all  wisely  managed  institutions 
for  the  promotion  of  scientific  discovery,  they  give  the 
power  of  choosing  new  discoverers  to  those  discoverers 
already  belonging  to  the  university  or  institution,  and 
they  take  care  that  all  the  electors  are  vitally  interested 
for  the  honour,  credit,  and  pecuniary  success  of  their  uni- 
versity. These  conditions  can  be  arranged  and  brought 
into  healthy  action  by  care  and  understanding.  But  the 
whole  fabric  may  go  to  pieces,  and  jobbery  and  jealousy 
prevail  (as  has  sometimes  happened  in  England)  if  care 
is  not  taken  to  identify  the  personal  interests  of  the 
electors  (brother  professors)  with  the  honest  exercise  of 
their  capacity  to  choose  a  real  discoverer  to  fill  a  vacancy 
when  it  occurs,  or  if  an  ignorant  council  of  "  superior 
persons  "  is  allowed  to  interfere. 

To  find  these  great  discoverers  is,  indeed,  no  light 
task.  They  have  to  be  looked  for  by  the  State,  firstly, 
in  the  primary  schools ;  the  net  has  to  be  drawn  and  the 
minor  fishes  allowed  to  escape,  whilst  the  strong  and 
promising  are  sent  on  to  high  schools.  Then  again, 
after  further  sifting,  some  are  passed  on  to  the  special 
college,  then  a  selection  to  the  university,  and  at  last 
one  or  two  a  year  may  be  chosen  as  assistants  to  an 
established  and  inspiring  discoverer.  Seven,  ten,  or 


HOW  TO  PROMOTE  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY     415 

fifteen  years  later  one  out  of  all  his  fellows  and  prede- 
cessors is  recognized   as  the  incomparable   teacher   and 
discoverer — the  inspirer  of  others,  the  one  great  man  of 
half  a  century.      He  must  be  chosen  by  his  colleagues, 
his  fellow-workers,  not  by  political  wire-pullers  nor  by 
any  variety  of   social  "  Bumble."      He  is  given  labora- 
tories and  assistants,  and   men  come  to  consult  him,  to 
sit  under  him,  work  for  him,  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
Louis  Pasteur  was  such  a  man.      Huxley  pointed  out  by 
what  a  vast  public  expenditure  Pasteur  was  gradually 
sifted  out  from  his  fellows,  and  made  professor  in   the 
Normal    School    of   Paris.     Of   course,    a    good    many 
inferior    people   got   a   share   of   the   training    provided, 
and   did  some  unimportant  things  ;  but  if  we  put  them 
aside  it  is  perfectly  true  (as  a  calculation  of  the  expenses 
of   the  whole  network  of    State-supported    schools   and 
colleges  and  bursaries  through  which  he  passed  will  show) 
that  the  capture  or  discovery  of  Pasteur  cost  the  French 
nation  about  £25,000,000.      He  was  worth  it,  not  only 
to  France,  but  to  every  other  nationality — and  more,  too, 
more    than    can    be    measured    by    gold.      His     name, 
honoured    throughout    the    world     on     account    of    the 
splendid  discoveries  associated  with  it,  gave  self-respect, 
courage,  and  healthy  pride  to  France  at  a  time  when 
she    had    cruelly    suffered.     Ten     years    ago    the    most 
popular    newspaper    in    France    took    a  "  plebiscite "  to 
determine  who,  in  the  general  estimation  of  the  French 
people,  was  the  greatest  Frenchman  of  the  nineteenth 
century — the  century  which  included  the  first  Napoleon, 
Victor  Hugo,  Gambetta.     The  vote  was  given  by  some 
millions,  and  resulted  in  a  majority  for  Louis  Pasteur. 
Would    Englishmen    have     shown     such     discernment? 
Such  a  man  is  absolutely  necessary  as  the  head  of  any 
great  institute  which  exists  for  the  purpose  of  scientific 
discovery.     Such  men,  smaller  it  may  be,  but  of  the  same 


416  DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 

inspiring  quality,  are  the  only  men  fit  to  be  university 
professors.  It  is  because  there  are  still  such  men  at  the 
Institut  Pasteur  that  it  remains  a  great  seat  of  discovery. 
It  is  because  they  have  not  such  men,  and  that  there 
is  no  intelligent  attempt  to  get  them,  that  many  wealthy 
institutions  in  our  own  country  fail  to  produce  scientific 
fruit. 


INDEX 


Abies,  the  genus  of  the  Silver  Fir,  317 

Acorns,  sea-,  100,  no 

Actinia        mesembryanthemum,        a 

common  sea-anemone,  85,  86 
living   in   an   aquarium  for   fifty 

years,  86 

African  animals,  preservation  of,  20 
Alchemists  and  the  divining-rod,  385 
Aldeburgh,     amber     to     be     bought 

there,  74 

the  great  pebble  beach  at,  55 
Alpine  flowers,  161 

reason  of  strong  colour  of,  167, 

168 
Amber,  71-76 

chemical  nature  of,  75 
insects  in,  73 
uses  of,  73,  74 
Amber-routes,  70 

Ambleteuse,  once  a  great  harbour,  51 
Amphioxus,  2 
Anchovy,  the,  359 

sauce,  its  history  and  colour,  359 
Anemone,  the  Weymouth,  88 
Anemones,  sea-,  81,  84,  85,  86 

fertilization  of,  186 
Anthea  cereus,  a  sea- anemone,  86 
Ape,   the   lines  on  the  palm  of  the, 

373f 

to  man,  from,  236-291 
Apes,  mental  qualities  of,  241,  242 
Aquariums,  marine,  made  fashionable 

by  Mr.  Gosse,  83 
"Arabian  Nights,"  stories  as  to  men 

turned  into  fish,  353 
Araucaria,  the  monkey-puzzle,  329 
Arbor  vitse,  a  kind  of  cypress,  330 
Argentiere  (Switzerland),  164 
Aril  of  the  yew  tree,  310 
Arthropods    or    jointed-leg    owners, 

102,  103 
Ashtaroth,  352 
Astrology,  372 
Atargatis,  352 
Atlas  cedar,  320 
Augurs,   the   Roman  corporation  of, 

371 

Aurelia,  the  common  jelly-fish,  95 

27 


Australian  natives,  29,  30 
Automata,  animals  as,  187 

Balancers  or  dwindled  wings  of  the 

two- winged  flies,  218 
Balanus,     the    sea-acorn     or    acorn- 
barnacle,  no 

Ballet,  Russian  Imperial,  169,  177 
Barnacle,  growth  and  transformation 

of,  111-113 
the  legend  of  the,  and  the  goose, 

118-141 

the  ship's,  figure  of,  109 
Barnacle- goose,  the,  118 
Barnacles,  100,  108-141 
nauplius  young  of,  discovered  by 
the   Army  surgeon,    Vaughan 
Thompson,  107 

their  " complemental  males"  dis- 
covered by  Darwin,  115 
Barrett,  Sir  W.  F.,  on  water-finders, 

389,  390 

Beaches,  constituents  of,  53,  55-63 
Bee,  the  queen,  retains  the  sperm  of 
one   drone    for    four   or    five 
years,  405 
Beit,  M.  Otto,  408 
Bernacae  and  bernak,  Celtic  word  for 

shell-fish,  121 
Berri-berri,  a  disease  due  to  bad  diet, 

297 
Birds  believed    to  be    produced   by 

trees,  118 

their  courtship,  298-300 
Birth-marks,  belief  in,  similar  to  that 
in    magical    power  of  water- 
finders,  390 
experiment  by  the  patriarch  Jacob, 

39 1»  399 

Mr.  Heape  on,  398 
Bivalve  and  univalve  shells,  143 
Bleeding   of  the  nose,    Latin   hymn 

to  arrest,  343 

Blood,  amount  of,  in  man's  body,  348 
coloured   blue  in   scorpions,   crus- 
taceans, and  molluscs,  346 
colourless  corpuscles  of,  349 
colourless,  of  lower  animals,  346 


418 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


Blood,  duties  of  the,  349,  350 

emotion  and  excitement  caused  by 

sight  of,  345 
fascination   of,   distinguished   from 

cruelty,  344 
of  the  grub  of  the  midge  and   of 

the  coiled  pond-snail,  coloured 

red  by  haemoglobin,  346 
red  corpuscles  of,  347 
superstitions  about,  342,  343 
the,  and  its  circulation,  343  et  seq* 
the  only  case  of  an  insect  with  red, 

223,  346 
used  as  an  adhesive  by  Australians, 

343 

Blood-stream,  its  pace  in  man,  348 
Blood-vessels,  swollen,   of  molluscs, 

Crustacea,  and  insects,  340 
Bournemouth,  various  pine  trees  at, 

324 

Bower-bird,  its  play-run,  196 

Brain  of  apes  and  man,  253  et  seq. 
increase  of  its  size  means  increase 

of  educability,  268 
significance   of  its   greater  size   in 

man  than  apes,  257-261 
small  brains  of  extinct  animals,  259 

Brent-geese  and  tree-geese,  122 

Bristle-worms,  79 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  and  the  spon- 
taneous generation  of  mice,  125 

Bruno,  St.,  his  lily,  165 

Bummaloh,  or  Bombay  duck,  359 

Bunodes  crassicornis,  a  sea-anemone, 
85,  86 

Bustard,  the  courting  of  the,  199 

Buttercup,  the  white,  165 

Cable,  author  of  "  Old  Creole  Days," 

Canard  and  cock-and-bull  stories,  119 
Canine   tooth   of  the   Piltdown  jaw, 

discovery  of  the,  287 
Capercailzie,  the,  44 
Carnelians  on  the  Felixstowe  beach,  58 
Cedars,  319 
Cement  stones,  58 
Charles    II   and    the   globe    of   fish, 

406 

Chartreuse,  the  Grande,  163 
Chesil  beach,  the,  61 
Chin,  the  bony,  of  man,  peculiar  to 

him,  250 

Christmas  trees,  302 
Chyle,  the,  333 


Circulation,  the,  of  the  blood,  348 
Cirripedes,      the     order     comprising 

barnacles,  114 

Click-beetles,     the    adults  of    wire- 
worms,  225 
Cockle,  the  common,  146 

jumping  powers  of  the,  150 
Ccelom,     the     lymph-holding     body 

cavity,  338 

Colours  of  marine  animals,  93 
Cone  of  the  Douglas  fir  (figure),  327 
of  the  Larch  (figure),  319 
of  the   Monterey   Pine,    or    Pinus 

insignis  (figure),  325 
of  the  Pinaster  (figure),  323 
of  the  Prickly  pine,  Pinus  muricata 

(figure),  326 
(male  and  female)  of  the  Scots  fir 

(figure),  305 
(female)  of  the  Silver  fir  (figure), 

3i6 
(female)  of  the  Spruce  or  Christmas 

tree  (figure),  318 
(modified)  of  the  Yew  tree  (figure), 

310 

Cones,  globular,  of  cypress,  330 
of  juniper,  308,  331 
of  firs  and  pine  trees,  303 
Coniferae,  survey  of,  313 

tabular  statement  of  their  families, 

sections,  and  genera,  331 
Conifers,    the    three    commonest    in 

England,  308 
Conjugation   in   lower  forms  of  life, 

183 

Conjurers  still   believed  by  some    to 
conjure  spirits  and  deal  in  the 
black  art,  365 
Connective  tissue,  335 
Conscious    and    unconscious    minds, 

262-263 

Consciousness,  arrival  of,  213 
Contagious  magic  and  fish-eating,  354 
Copal  gum,  similar  to  amber,  73 
Copalite  found  at  Highgate,  76 
Coprolite  on  the  Suffolk  shore,  59 
Coral,  white,  3,  9 
Corals  related  to  sea-anemones,  89 
Corethra,  the   plume    fly,    its    trans- 
parent larva,  27,  224 
Corpus  Christi,  festival  of,  and  danc- 
ing* *74 
i  Corpuscles,  colourless,  of  the  blood, 

349 
red,  of  the  blood,  347 


INDEX 


419 


Correvon,  M.,  his  garden,  163 
Corundum   pebbles    give   flame-flash  j 

when  rubbed  together,  67 
Courting  dress  of  water-fleas,  205 
Courtship,  180-215 

methods  of,   in  man  not  inherited 

or  instinctive,  21 1 
Crabs,  98,  104,  105 
Crane-fly,  216  et  seq. 
Crawfish  and  crayfish,  99 
Crustaceans,  use  of  the  word,  98 
Cucujos,  the,  a  phosphorescent  beetle 

of  South  America,  234 
Cupressus  sempervirens,  the  common 

cypress,  330 
Cyansea,  the  stinging  jelly-fish  of  our 

coast,  95 
Cycads,  an  order   allied  to  conifers, 

309 

Cypress  tree,  the,  330 

Cyprus  and  coffers,  330 

and  Crete,  ancient  vases  from,  j 
with  pictures  of  transition  from  | 
barnacle  to  goose,  130,  133 

Daddy-Long-Legs,  216  et  seq. 

sometimes  used  as  a  name  for  the 

spider-like  Opilio,  220 
Dagon,  the  fish-god,  352 
Dancing  and  science,  169  et  seq. 
of  birds  and  spiders,  171 
various   kinds   of,    172,    173,    177, 

178 

Daphne,  the  Alpine,  166 
Darwin  and  Lord  Morton's  mare,  400 
Dawson,  Mr.  Charles,  discovers  the 

missing  link,  284 

Deodar,  the  Himalayan  cedar,  320 
Destruction     of    native    animals    in 

England,  15 

Devvar,    Sir    James,    on     suspended 
animation  of  luminous  bacteria, 
158. 
Diet,  certain  substances  necessary  to 

healthy,  294 
Diptera  or  two-winged  flies,  divisions 

of,  222 
Disharmonies  in  animal  structure  and 

habit,  227 

in  man's  structure,  228 
Display  in  courtship,  197  et  seq. 
Divination,  371 

by  the  forked  twig,  384 

by  throwing  a  rod  into  the  air,  383 

varieties  of  methods  in,  371 


Divining-rod,  the,  383 

Dormouse,  easily  loses  the  skin  of  its 

tail,  219 

Dousers  and  dousing,  385 
dishonest  variety  of,  388 
or  water-finders  tested    by  a  com- 
mittee, 392 
some  honest,  387 

Dragon,  the  heraldic,  and  the  para- 
chute lizard,  382 
Dredge,  the  naturalist's,  I 
Duclaux,  Professor,  his  advice  as  to 

diet,  299 
Dunwich,  a  submerged  city,  50 

Earth-worm,  coelom  of  the,  338 
Educability,  213,  268-269 
Elaterids,  a  family  of  beetles,  225 
phosphorescent  species  of,  234 
Emperor   moth,    attractive    smell    of 

female,  209 
Eoanthropus  Dawsoni,  the  Piltdown 

Hominid,  283 
Erosion  of  the  coast,  51 
Euphausia,  a  phosphorescent  shrimp, 

picture  of,  154 

Evergreens,  our  native,  list  of,  312 
Ewart,  Prof.  Cossar,  his  experiments 

on  telegony,  400 
Experience,    learning   by   individual, 

212 

Expression   by   the   face,   greater   in 

man  than  apes,  273 
Eyes  of  deep-sea  animals,  93 

Fabre,  his  opinion  of  animal  intelli- 
gence, 197,  198 

Fainting,  men,  at  sight  of  blood,  345 

Fast  days,  351,  352 

Felixstowe  beach,  56 

erosion  of  the  coast  at, -50 

large  piece  of  amber  found  at,  70 

Fertilization,  180 

Fir,  Scots,  305,  321 

Silver,  or  Abies  pectinata,  315 
used  to  build  the  Trojan  horse,  306 

Fire-flies  of  Southern  Europe,  233 

Firestones,  65 

Fish,  a  young,  saves  Manu  from  the 

Deluge,  353 

and  Christian  ornament,  356,  357 
and  fast  days,  351  et  seq. 
as  the  symbol  of  Christ,  354 
certain,    poisonous   to    every   one, 
358 


420 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


Fish,  modelled  in  gold,  life  size,  dug 

up  near  the  Black  Sea,  353 
poisons,  357,  358 
some,    poisonous    only  to    certain 

individuals,  358 

worship  of,  and  the  fish-god,  352 
Fish-worship  of  the    ancient   Greek 

Orpheists,  355 
Flame,    flash    of,     produced     under 

water,  66 
produced   by   rubbing   two   quartz 

pebbles  together,  65 
Flame-seeking  insects,  229,  230 
Flies,  two-winged,  or  Diptera  which 

are  phosphorescent,  234 
various  kinds  of,  222,  223 
Fly  as  dirt  carrier,  300 
Food,  constituents  of,  292 
Foot  of  man  and  his  upright  carriage, 

243 

Foot-jaws  of  crab  and  lobster,  104 

Forbes,  Edward,  a  sketch  by,  159 

Fowl,  the  common,  43 

France  gained  courage  and  self- 
respect  through  Pasteur,  415 

French  cookery,  sham,  in  Switzerland, 
165 

Fresh-water  jelly-fish,  91,  92 

Fridays  and  fish-eating,  by  Jews  as 
well  as  Christians,  352 

Frog,  blue  variety  of  the  edible,  163 

Futurists,  23 

Galliformes,  an  order  of  birds,  43 

Geese,  drawings  of,  by  ancient 
Mykensean  artists,  modified  to 
resemble  barnacles,  133,  134 

Gelinotte,  46 

Geology  and   living   toads  in  rocks, 

379 

Geomancy,  372 

Gerard  the  herbalist  on  the  trans- 
formation of  ship's  barnacles 
into  geese,  121 

Giard,  Professor ;  discovery  of  a 
phosphorescent  disease  in 
sand-hoppers,  by  him,  156 

Gingko  tree  of  Japan,  309 

Giraldus  Cambrensis  and  the  pro- 
duction of  geese  from  timber, 

120 

Glass-like  marine  animals,  92 
Glow-worms,  233 

Goose-tree,  the,  as  drawn  by  Gerard 
in  1597,  123 


Gopher  tree  of  the  Bible,  330 
Gosse,  Mr.  Philip  Henry,  83 
Greek  dancing,  175,  176 

name-gods  or  totems,  356 
Grouse,  black,  red,  and  others,  45 

the,  and  allied  birds,  41 
Gummi-horn,  the,  160 

Hsema,    the  red  part  of  blood,  339, 

347 

Haemoglobin,  or  blood-red,  347 
in  the  blood    of  the   larva   of  the 
big  black  midge  (Chironomus), 
223 

in  Bonellia,  n 
in  the  coiled  pond-snail,  346 

Hsemolymph,  the  proper  name  for 
vertebrate  blood,  339,  346 

Hallucination  and  self-hypnotism,  372 

Hamingia,  a  green  worm,  10-11 

Hamlet  and  superstition,  361 

Hampstead  Heath,  16 

Hands  and  feet,  size  and  shape  of, 
as  indicating  character,  375 

Hardanger  Fiord,  3 

Haruscipation,  372 

Heart-urchin,  80 

Henslow,  of  Cambridge,  59 

Hierapolis,  where  Atargatis  was 
worshipped,  352 

Hopkins,  Mr.  Gowland,  his  experi- 
ments on  diet,  294 

Hdtel  du  Planet,  good  food  at,  164 

House  sparrow  trained  to  be  a 
songster,  207 

Houssay,  M.  Frederic,  his  discovery 
of  the  origin  of  the  goose  and 
barnacle  story  in  paintings  on 
Mykenasan  vases,  131  et  seq. 

Huxley  and  Cuvier  on  the  distinctive 

quality  of  man,  272 
and  Owen,  their  controversy,  236 

Hybridization,  infection  of  plants  by, 

403 
Hydra  tuba  breaks  up  into  jelly-fish, 

97 

Idiosyncrasy  as  to  poisonous  quality 

offish,  358 
Infant,    crying     of    the     human,    a 

speciality,  272 
Infantile  diarrhoea,  300 
Inflammation,  nature  of,  349 
Insects,  many   guided   by   the   sense 

of  smell,  209 


INDEX 


421 


Instinct  and  reason  in  courtship,  205 
Instincts,  267 

Intestine,    the   large,  a  disharmony, 
228 

Japan,  the  umbrella  pine  of,  330 
Javanese  story  of  a  bird  produced  by 

a  shell-fish,  138 

Jaw,  lower  surface  of  the  Piltdown, 
compared   with    that   of    man 
and  of  chimpanzee,  282 
from  Moulin-Quignon,  289 
Heidelberg,    compared    with    Pilt- 
down, 286 
Piltdown,  283 

Jelly-fish,  9i,94,95»96,97 
Jelly-fishes  which  sting,  95 
Juniper,  the,  308,  330 
Junipers,  330 

Kauri  resin,  similar  to  amber,  73 
Kowalewsky,   the   Russian  zoologist, 


Labouchere,  Mr.  Henry,  his  view  on 

food,  293 
Lacteals,  or  milky  lymphatic  vessels, 

333 

Lampyris  noctiluca,  the  common  glow- 
worm, 233 

Lancelet,  the,  2 

Langouste,  99 

Larch  tree,  the  common,  307,  319 

Laughter  in  apes,  241 

Leather-jackets,  the  grubs  of  the 
Crane-fly,  221 

Lebanon,  cedar  of,  320 

Lepas  anatifera,  the  ship's  barnacle, 
109 

Leprosy  and  fish-diet,  357 

favoured    by    same    conditions    as  | 
scurvy,  296 

Lervik  (Norway),  3 

Lights,  nocturnal,  attract  insects  and 
birds,  230,  232 

Lily  of  St.  Bruno,  166 

Limpet  and  cockle  compared,  146, 
148 

Lizard,  the  parachute,  is  the  model 
upon  which  the  heraldic 
dragon  is  founded,  382 

Lobsters,  99,  100 

Loch  Fyne  herrings,  their  food,  155 

Longevity  of  a  sea-anemone,  86 

Lophohelia,  9 


Luciola  italica,  the  fire-fly  of  South 
Europe,  233 

Luges,  or  mountain  sledges,  167 

Lug-worm,  79 

Luminous  bacteria,  1 58 
grub  of  Paraguay  called  the  railway- 
beetle,  234 
or  luminescent  insects,  232 

Lyell,  Mr.,  his  Bill  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Great  Grey  Seal, 

32,  34 
Sir  Charles,  used  the  term  "  missing 

link,"  276 
Lymph,  amount  of,  in   man's  body, 

333,  348 

and  lymphatic  system,  332  et  seq. 
Lymphatic  vessels  of  the  human  arm 

(figure),  334 
Lymph-hearts,  337 

Magi,  the  priests  of  Zoroaster,  368 
Magic,  history  of,  369,  370 

sympathetic,  369 
Male,    the   seeker    and   wooer,  185, 

190 
Man,  his  conscious  memory,  187 

primitive,  courtship  of,  195 
Mandrill,    beautiful   colours   of    the, 

205 
Man's  modern  method  of  courtship, 

215 
structure  compared  with  that  of  the 

gorilla  and  chimpanzee,   239, 

240,  241 

Manu,  the  Indian  Noah,  353 
Mare,  Lord  Morton's,  400 
Mares  not  infected  by  sire,  399-400, 

401 
Mastodon,  fragments  of  teeth  of,  found 

with  the  Piltdown  jaw,  289 
Mate  hunger.   Mr.   Pycraft   on,    191, 

192 

Maternal  impressions,  396  et  seq. 
Max  M  tiller,  Professor,  his  suggestion 

as   to  the  origin  of  the  belief 

that     barnacles    give    rise    to 

geese,  139-141 
May-flies  or  Ephemerids,  230 

some  are  phosphorescent  or  lumin- 
escent, like  glow-worms,  231 
Mechanisms    of    instinct,    inherited, 

268,  269 

of  the  mind,  distinguished,  211,  212 
Medicines,      quack,     and     credulity, 

366 


422 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


Memory   essential    to    consciousness, 

264 

unconscious,  266 

unconscious  and  conscious,  distin- 
guished, 212,  214 

Mendes,    Catulle,   the  French   poet,  I 
and  jelly-fish,  97 

Metchnikoff  on  disharmonies,  367 

Midge  (Chironomus),  its  grub  has  red 
blood,  346 

Midges,  large  kind  of,  223 

Milk  and  infantile  scurvy,  296 
Pasteurized,  300 
supply  of  pure,  292  et  seq. 

Millais,  Sir  Everett,  on  telegony, 
400 

Millionaire  and  sodium  in  the  sun, 
378 

Milton  the  poet,  his  belief  in  spon- 
taneous generation,  126 

Mind,  the,  of  apes  and  of  man,  262 

et  seq. 

of  man  differs  from  that  of  animals, 
213 

Missing  link,  the,  275  et  seq. 

Molluscs,   alternate   swelling  of  and 
shrinking  of  parts  of  the  body, 
149 
and  their  shells,  142  et  seq. 

Monboddo,  Lord,  his  views  on  man 
and  apes,  276 

Monkey-puzzle  or  Ajraucarian  pine, 
329 

Moray,  Sir  Robert,  on  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  ship's  barnacle  into 
a  goose,  115,  127 

Moth,    thej    and   the    candle,  226  et 

seq. 

vapourer,  male  pursues  female  living 
in  water  and  is  drowned,  210 

Mules,  399 

Muller,  Iwan,  and  the  microscope,  28 

Murray,  Sir  John,  at  Millport,  155 

Muscles  of  apes  and  men,  247 

Music  a  late  acquisition  of  man,  208 

Mussel,  the  edible,  145 

Name-gods    or     totems    of    ancient 

Greeks,  356 
Naples,  2,  52,  203 
Naturalist  on  the  seashore,  25 
Nature  reserves,  13 
Nature-worship,  the  ancient,  352 
Nauplius,  the  young  form  or  larva  of 

crustaceans,  105,  106,  107 


Neander  or  Moustierian  man,  280 
Necromancy,  or  communication  with 

the  dead,  371 

Needles  of  firs  and  pine  trees,  303,  315 
of  pine-trees  in  tufts  of  one  to  five, 

321 
Nero,    the     Roman    Emperor,    and 

amber,  71 
"  Nigromantia "   and   the    black  art, 

371 

Nobel  prizes,  412 
Normand,  Rev.  Canon,  3 
Norway,  I 
Noverre,    "the   Shakespeare   of  the 

dance,"  176 
"  Nullius  in  verba,"  the  motto  of  the 

Royal  Society,  128,  362,  407 
Nutrition,  not  so  simple  a  matter  as 

supposed,  293 

Occultism,  modern,  363 
Octopus,  courtship  of  the,  203 
Odours  as  attractions  and    guides  in 

courtship,  209 
Opal,  57 

Orchestia,  a  sand-hopper,  153 
Orpheus,  the  fish-god,  substituted  for 

Dionysus,  the  wine-god,  355 
the   warden   of  the   fishes,  a  fish- 
god,  355 

Ovules  and  sperms,  181 
Oxygen  carried  by  the  red  corpuscles 

of  blood,  347 
Oysters  growing  on  trees,  145 

Palmistry  or  chiromancy,  372,  373 

Paradisia  liliastrum,  166 

Pasteur,  the  Institut,  a  great  seat  of 

discovery,  416 
what  he  cost  to  France,  415 

Pavlova,  Madame  Anna,  169,  178 

Pebbles  of  the  seashore,  55-63 

Penguins,  method  of  courtship  of,  196 

Pentargon   Cove  and  a  young   Grey 
Seal,  35,  40 

Perfumes  produced  by    male   butter- 
flies, 210 
use  of,  by  man,  209 

Phagocytes,  336,  349 

Phonograph  and  chants  of  Australian 
natives,  31 

Phosphorescence  of  the  sea,  153 

Phosphorescent  insects,  232 
sand-hoppers,  156 
shrimps,  154,  155 


INDEX 


423 


Photo-taxis  or  light  guidance,  235 
Picea,    the   genus   of   the  Spruce    or 

Christmas  tree,  317 
Pierre-i-voir,  167 
Piltdown  jaw,  age  of  the,  289 

jaw  and  Heidelberg  jaw  compared, 
286 

jaw,  as  reconstructed  by  Dr.  Smith 
Woodward,  288 

skull  and  jaw, 
Pine-,  origin  of  the  word,  304 

Aleppo,  322 

Arolla  (Pinus  cembra),  328 

Bhotan  (Pinus  excelsa),  329 

Californian  prickly,  320 

cluster,  or  Pinaster,  322 

Corsican  or  Austrian,  322 

Monterey,    or    Pinus    insignis,    at 
Bournemouth,  324 

Montezuma  of  Mexico,  329 

Pyrensean  or  Calabrian,  322 

stone,  or  parasol  pine,  323 

trees  and  other  conifers,  302  et  seq. 

umbrella,  of  Japan,  330 

Weymouth  (Pinus  strobus),  328 
Pipe-fish,  75 
Pollen  of  pine  trees  carried  by  wind, 

304 

Ponds  as  nature-reserves,  27 
Prawns,  99 

Primates,  apes  and  bats,  238 
Proteids,  special,  necessary  in   food, 

297 

Pseudotsuga,  the  Douglas  fir,  327 
Ptarmigan,  45 

Ptomaines  of  putrid  fish,  357 
Puteoli,  near  Naples,  52 

Quartz,  57 

crystals,  rubbed  together   produce 
flame,  67 

Raised  beaches,  52 

Rats,  experiments  on  feeding  young, 
294 

Razor -fish,  80 

Reasoning,  the  origin  of  false  as  well 
as  of  true  beliefs,  367 

Record,  the  Great,  the  peculiar  posses- 
sion of  humanity,  271 

Redi,  Italian  naturalist,  on  the 
generation  of  maggots  by  eggs 
laid  by  flies,  126 

Regeneration  of  legs  and  tails,  218, 
219 


Religion   and  magic,   one   in  origin, 

369 

Reproduction,  mechanism  of,  181 
Research,  scientific,  a  delicate  plant, 

411 

how  to  help  it  by  money,  413 
various   attempts   at    promoting, 

411 
Reserves  for  native  fauna  in  various 

countries,  19 
Rhabdopleura,  4,  5,  6,  7 
Rice,  polished,  and  berri-berri,  297 
Rings  of  the  body  of  crab,  lobster,  and 

prawn,  104 
Rock-pools,  25,  81 
Roman  road,  submerged,  near  Naples, 

52 
Royal      Society,      its     influence     on 

superstition,  361 
its  motto,  128,  362,  407 
the  method  of  its  founders,  362 
Ruff,  the  display  in  courtship  of  the, 
198 

St.  Swithin's  Day,  belief  about,  ex- 
ploded, 406 

Sagartia  troglodytes,  a  beautiful  sea- 
anemone,  85,  88 

Samland,  where  amber  is  mined,  70 
Sand,  dry,  shrinks  when  wetted,  64 

of  the  seashore,  65 

size  and  shape  of  its  grains,  62 
Sand-eels,  79 
Sand-hoppers,  152 

disease  of,  156,  157 
Sardines,  360 

Savin,  a  kind  of  juniper,  308 
Scavengers,  phagocytes  as,  349 
Schliemann's  great  experiment,  406 
Schynige  Platte,  view  from  the,  160 
Sciadopitys,    the   Japanese    umbrella 

pine,  330 

Science  and  the  unknown,  361  et  seq. 
Scientific  discovery  aided  by  money, 

408  et  seq. 

Scorpions,  cannibalism  of,  202 
Scots  fir,  305,  312 

Scurvy,    infantile,   described    by   Sir 
Thomas  Barlow,  296 

nature  of  that  disease,  295 
Sea-anemones,  81,  84,  85,  86 
Seal,  the  Great  Grey,  32  et  seq. 

the  northern  fur-seal,  courtship  of, 

192,  193 
Sea  shells,  142 


424 


DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST 


Seashore  as  nature-reserve,  24 

constituents  of,  48,  55 
Sea-worms,  78,  79 
Seeds,  winged,  of  fir  trees,  317 
Sequoia,  the  Big-tree  and  the  Red- 
wood, 329 

Shakespear  and  barnacles,  120 
Shells  of  molluscs,  142 
Singing  competitions  of  male  birds, 

207 

Skeleton  of  apes  and  man,  245  et  seq. 
Skull    and  jaw   found   at  Piltdown, 

277,  290 
Smell,    the    sense   of,    in    man   and 

animals,  208,  209 
Smithson,  founder  of  the  Smithsonian 

Institute,  409 

Snail,  pond-,  with  red  blood,  346 
Soap- wort,  167 
Soho,  old  house  in,  14 
Song,  the  beginnings  of,  in  man,  208 
Sounds   as   attractions   in   courtship, 

206 
Space,  extreme  cold  of,  not  fatal  to 

life,  159 
Spencer,    Professor    Baldwin,   shows 

bioscope  pictures  of  Australian 

natives,  30 

Sperms  and  ovules,  181 
Spider's  courtship  and  dance,  201 
Sprats  fraudulently  sold  as  Anchovies 

and  as  Sardines,  360 
Spruce  introduced  to  Britain  by  man, 

307 

or  Norway  pine,  306,  317 
Stickleback's    nest    and     courtship, 

200,  20 1 

Stordo  (Lervik),  3 
Strieker  of  Vienna,  the  microscopist, 

336 

Succinite,  correct  name  for  amber,  75 
Survival  value   of  colour  in  flowers, 

168 

Switzerland,  160  et  seq. 
Synapta,  and  anchors  in  its  skin,  80 


Tail  of  man,  a  disharmony,  228 
Talitrus,  a  sand-hopper,  153 
Taxodinas,  a  group  of  fir  trees,  329 
Teeth  of  apes  and  of  man,  248,  249 
of  extinct  animals  on  the  seashore, 

59 

wisdom,  as  disharmonies,  228 
Telegony  described,  399 
Tetraonidse,  the  grouse  family,  44 
Thoracic  duct,  the,  334 
Thumb  of  apes  and  of  man  compared, 

243 

Thuya,  the  Arbor  vitae,  330 

Tipula     oleracea,    the    Crane-fly    or 

Daddy- Long-Legs,  216  et  seq. 
Toads   found    living    in    stone,    376 

et  seq. 

Topiary  and  yew  trees,  312 
Troy,  discovery  of  ancient,  406 
Tsetse  fly,  22 
Tyndal,  the  late  Professor,  67 

Vitamine   from    outer    coat   of  rice- 
grain,  298 
Volvox  animalcule,  183,  184 

Water-finder,  impostor  exposed,  392, 

393 

Water-finders,  387,  390 
Water-finding,  theories  of,  388,  389 
Weald  of  Sussex,  289 
Wellingtonia,  the  American  Big- tree, 

329 
Whittington   and   his   cat,    origin   of 

the  legend,  139 
Wickham  Fen,  18 
Willey,  Dr.,  on  the  lancelet,  3 
Winter-green,  167 
Wire- worms,  true  and  false,  221 
Woman  in  civilized  races,  not  man, 

seeks  to  captivate  by  display, 

211 

Yew,  the  Irish,  311,  312 
trees,  310,  311,  312 


Printed  by  MORRISON  &  GIBB  LIMITED,  Edinburgh 


METHUEN'S  POPULAR  NOVELS 

Crown  8vo.     6s.  each 

AUTUMN,   1915 

JOSEPH  CONRAD VICTORY 

H.  Q.  WELLS BEALBY 

ARNOLD  BENNETT A  GREAT  MAN 

ANTHONY  HOPE A  YOUNG  MAN'S  YEAR 

C.  N.  and  A.  M.  WILLIAMSON      .    .    .  SECRET  HISTORY 

GEORGE  A.  BIRMINGHAM GOSSAMER 

MARJORIE  BOWEN    ....  BECAUSE  OP  THESE  THINGS 

D.  H.    LAWRENCE THE  RAINBOW 

RICHARD  PRYCE DAVID  PENSTEPHEN 

W.   PETT  RIDGE THE  KENNEDY  PEOPLE 

E.  PHILLIPS  OPPENHEIM    .  Mr.  GREX  OP  MONTE  CARLO 

LADY  TROUBRIDGE THE  EVIL  DAY 

Mrs.  HENRY  DUDENEY THE  SECRET  SON 

ASHTON  HILLIERS DEMI-ROYAL 

P.  G.  WODEHOUSE SOMETHING  NEW 

H.   C.   BAILEY THE  HIGHWAYMAN 

SAX  ROHMER THE  YELLOW  CLAW 

MAURICE  DRAKE THE  OCEAN  SLEUTH 

CONSTANCE  COTTERELL     .    .  THE  PERPETUAL  CHOICE 

EVELYN  APTED CHARLES  QUANTRILL 

MARJORIE  L.  PICKTHALL LITTLE  HEARTS 

ORDER    FORM 

To..., 


Kindly  send  me  the  several  books  which  I  have  marked  on  the  above 
list. 

Name 

Address 

[P.T.O. 


VICTORY.     By  Joseph  Conrad,  Author  of  'Chance.' 

In  this  story  Mr.  Conrad  returns  to  the  manner  of  his  famous  early  romance, 
The  Outcast  of  the  Island.  The  principal  character,  a  lawless  adventurer  called 
\  Enchanted  Heyst,'  is  one  of  the  great  figures  in  Mr.  Conrad's  gallery  ;  the  scene 
is  laid  in  and  about  the  tropical  island  of  Samburan  ;  and  the  theme  is  love  and 
jealousy. 

BEALBY.    By  H.  Q.  Wells. 

This  new  novel  is  a  feast  of  fast  and  furious  fun.  Mr.  Wells  throws  problems 
of  all  sorts  to  the  dogs,  and  revels  in  the  diverting  adventures  of  a  small  boy  who, 
in  the  course  of  one  brief  week,  works  havoc  in  the  lives  of  many  people. 
Delightful  people  are  they  all,  as  portrayed  by  Mr.  Wells,  from  the  self- 
important,  philosophic  Lord  Chancellor  down  to  the  socialistic  (and  very  dirty) 
tramp. 

A  GREAT  MAN.  By  Arnold  Bennett,  Author  of '  Clayhanger.' 
This  is  a  new  edition  of  a  well-known  novel  by  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett,  called 
by  him  a  'frolic.'  It  may  be  said  to  have  paved  the  way  for  his  famous  comic 
romance  The  Card  and  its  sequel  The  Regent.  In  A  Great  Man  Mr.  Bennett 
describes  the  life  and  achievements  of  Henry  Shakespeare  Knight,  who  from 
humble  beginnings  becomes  a  world-famous  novelist  and  one  of  the  wealthiest 
of  playwrights,  a  goal  attained  only  after  much  amusing  adventure  by  the  way. 

A  YOUNG  MAN'S  YEAR.    By  Anthony  Hope. 

The  story  of  an  eventful  year  in  the  life  of  Arthur  Lisle,  of  the  Middle  Temple, 
Esquire :  recounting  his  fortunes  and  ventures,  professional,  speculative,  and 
romantic,  and  showing  how  he  sought  without  finding,  and  found  without  seeking, 
and,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  was  twelve  months  older  and  as  much  wiser  as  young 
men  are  for  such  experiences. 

SECRET   HISTORY.      By  C.  N.   and  A.   M.    Williamson, 

Authors  of  'The  Lightning  Conductor.' 

The  title  of  this  book  refers  to  the  '  secret  history '  of  a  recent  critical  episode 
between  the  United  States  and  Mexico.  Taking  the  form  of  the  dramatic  and 
sensational  love  stories  of  two  Irish  girls  and  two  officers,  the  romance  has  its 
scenes  partly  at  an  army  post  in  Texas  and  partly  in  diplomatic  circles  in  London 
in  1914-15.  The  story  is  told  in  the  first  person  by  Lady  Peggy  O'Malley. 

GOSSAMER.      By    George    A.     Birmingham,    Author    of 

'Spanish  Gold.' 

In  this  book  the  principal  characters  are  a  leader  in  the  world  of  international 
finance,  an  Irish  country  gentleman  who  has  parted  with  his  estate,  an  Irish 
journalist  who  is  also  a  member  of  Parliament  attached  to  the  Nationalist  party, 
a  lady  artist,  and  an  inventor  occupied  with  mechanical  devices.  The  story  ends 
with  the  declaration  of  war  in  August  1914,  and  culminates  in  the  effect  of  that 
catastrophe  on  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  the  various  characters. 

BECAUSE  OF  THESE  THINGS.    By  Marjorie  Bowen. 

This  story  relates  the  inevitable  tragic  drama  of  the  reckless  union  of 
two  diverse  temperaments  and  races,  brought  together  by  a  useless  passion. 
The  scene  changes  from  Bologna,  the  most  dissipated  city  of  Italy,  to  the 
Calvinistic  gloom  of  Scotland. 

THE  RAINBOW.     By  D.  H.  Lawrence,  Author  of  <  Sons  and 
Lovers.' 

This  story,  by  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  younger  school  of  novelists, 
•contains  a  history  of  the  Brangwen  character  through  its  developing  crisis  of 
love,  religion,  and  social  passion,  from  the  time  when  Tom  Brangwen,  the  well- 
to-do  Derbyshire  farmer,  marries  a  Polish  lady,  to  the  moment  when  Ursula,  his 
granddaughter,  the  leading-shoot  of  the  restless,  fearless  family,  stands  waiting 
at  the  advance-post  of  our  time  to  blaze  a  path  into  the  future. 


DAVID    PENSTEPHEN.       By    Richard    Pryce,    Author   of 

•Christopher.' 

The  author  deals  with  the  early  years  of  a  boy's  life.  The  action  of  the  story, 
opening  abroad,  and  then  moving  to  London  and  to  English  country  houses, 
takes  place  in  the  seventies.  The  story  is  almost  as  much  the  story  of  David's 
mother  as  of  David  himself,  and  shows,  against  a  background  of  the  manners  of 
the  time,  the  consequences  of  a  breaking  away  from  the  established  order.  How, 
under  the  shadow,  David's  childhood  is  yet  almost  wholly  happy,  and  how  on  the 
threshold  of  manhood  he  is  left  ready — his  heart's  desire  in  view — to  face  life  in 
earnest  and  to  make  a  new  name  for  himself  in  his  own  way,  these  pages  tell. 

THE  KENNEDY  PEOPLE.     By  W.  Pett  Ridge,  Author  of 

'The  Happy  Recruit.' 

The  author  is,  in  this  novel,  still  faithful  to  London,  but  he  sets  out  here  to 
till  something  like  fresh  ground.  A  description  is  given  of  three  generations  of  a 
family,  and  particulars  are  conveyed  of  the  kind  of  chart  that  represented  their 
advances  and  their  retreats.  The  story  is  told  in  Mr.  Pett  Ridge's  lively  and 
characteristic  manner. 

Mr.  QREX  OF  MONTE  CARLO.  By  E.  Phillips  Oppen- 
heim,  Author  of  «  Master  of  Men.' 

Mr.  Oppenheim  has  never  written  a  more  absorbing  story  than  this  one,  in 
which  an  adventurous  young  American  first  falls  in  love,  then  into  trouble,  and 
becomes  a  part  of  events  that  are  making  history. 

In  Monte  Carlo  three  men  skilled  in  international  intrigue  meet  in  secret 
conference  ;  two  Ministers  of  foreign  affairs  and  a  Grand  Duke  plan  to  make  over 
the  map  of  Europe,  while  a  diplomat  representing  a  fourth  great  world-power, 
aided  by  skilled  secret -service  men,  aims  to  thwart  their  endeavours.  Then — 
enter  the  American.  How  young  Richard  Lane,  wealthy  and  used  to  having  his 
own  way,  fell  in  love  with  mysterious  Mr.  Grex's  daughter,  how  he  was  not  dis- 
couraged even  when  he  found  out  what  an  important  personage  Mr.  Grex  really 
was,  how  he  took  a  hand  in  events  and  caused  an  upset,  is  told  in  a  thrilling 
love  story  that  lays  bare  the  methods  of  modern  international  diplomatists  and 
incidentally  conveys  a  warning  to  America  to  arm  herself  against  the  possibilities 
of  war. 

THE  EVIL  DAY.     By  Lady  Troubridge. 

In  this  book  Lady  Troubridge  abandons  for  the  first  time  the  study  of  the  very 
young  girl,  to  give  us  one  of  a  woman  of  forty,  who,  until  the  story  opens,  has 
led  a  quiet,  retired  and  domestic  existence.  Circumstances,  however,  bring  the 
heroine  face  to  face  with  modern  life  and  its  developments  in  their  most  vivid 
form,  and  she  does  not  pass  through  the  experience  altogether  unscathed. 

THE  SECRET  SON.    By  Mrs.  Henry  Dudeney. 

Mrs.  Henry  Dudeney's  new  novel  is  a  delightful  story  of  the  Sussex  Downs. 
Its  types  and  characters  are  rustic,  and  in  it  comedy  and  tragedy  are  skilfully 
mingled  by  this  most  accomplished  writer.  The  theme  of  the  book  is  the  relation 
between  mother  and  son,  and  the  reader  passes  to  the  close  of  a  very  human 
story  with  a  most  absorbing  interest. 

DEMI-ROYAL.  By  Ashton  Hilliers,  Author  of  'The  Adven- 
tures of  a  Lady  of  Quality.' 

That  the  famous  Mrs.  Fitzherbert,  legal  and  loyal  wife  of  the  Regent,  may 
have  borne  him  a  child  is  indisputable.  That  she  did  so  is  the  author's  thesis  in 
this  diverting  romance ;  and  the  fortunes  of  this  child,  legitimate,  but  un-royal, 
trepanned,  lost,  mourned  as  dead,  repudiated,  traced,  acknowledged,  are  his 
theme.  The  mother-love  of  a  noble  woman,  the  fears  of  a  selfish  voluptuary, 
the  self-sacrifice  of  honest  York,  form  the  warp  across  which  runs  the  woof  of 
a  girl's  life  lived  innocently  and  spiritedly  in  Puritan  surroundings,  watched 
over  by  the  Order  of  Jesus,  the  unconscious  centre  of  vehement  antagonisms. 


SOMETHING  NEW.     By  P.  Q.  Wodehouse,  Author  of  'The 

Little  Nugget.' 

The  treatment  of  this  story  is  farcical,  but  all  the  characters  are  drawn  care- 
fully as  if  it  were  a  comedy.  Ashe  Marson,  a  struggling  writer  of  adventure 
stories,  sees  an  advertisement  in  a  paper  in  which  '  a  young  man  of  good  appear- 
ance who  is  poor  and  reckless,  is  needed  for  a  delicate  and  perilous  enterprise.' 
Joan  Valentine,  the  heroine,  who  has  been  many  things  in  her  time,  also  answers  an 
advertisement  requiring  '  a  woman  to  conduct  a  delicate  and  perilous  enterprise.' 
THE  HIGHWAYMAN.  By  H.  C  Bailey,  Author  of  <A 

Gentleman  Adventurer.' 

This  is  a  story  set  in  the  last  years  of  Queen  Anne.  Naturally,  Jacobite  and 
Hanoverian  plots  and  conspirators  furnish  much  of  the  incident.  They  are, 
however,  only  a  background  to  the  hero  and  heroine,  whose  love  with  its 
adventures  and  misadventures  is  the  main  subject  of  the  novel.  Though  Marl- 
borough  and  the  Old  Pretender,  Queen  Anne  and  other  figures  of  history  play 
their  part,  it  is  the  hero  and  heroine  who  hold  the  centre  of  the  stage. 

THE  YELLOW  CLAW.      By  Sax  Rohmer,  Author  of  'Dr. 

Fu-Manchu.' 

This  is  an  enthralling  tale  of  Eastern  mystery  and  crime  in  a  European  setting. 
The  action  moves  from  an  author's  flat  in  Westminster  to  the  '  Cave  of  the  Golden 
Dragon,'  Shadwell,  and  the  weird  Catacombs  below  the  level  of  the  Thames,  and 
circles  round  '  Mr.  King,'  the  sinister  and  unseen  president  of  the  Kan-Suh  Opium 
Syndicate.  We  meet  with  the  beautiful  Eurasian,  Mahara,  '  Our  Lady  of  the 
Poppies,'  and  are  introduced  to  M.  Gaston  Max,  Europe's  greatest  criminologist, 
and  to  the  beetle-like  Chinaman,  Ho- Pin. 

THE  OCEAN  SLEUTH.  By  Maurice  Drake. 
This  is  an  exciting  story,  by  one  of  the  most  promising  of  the  younger  novelists, 
of  perils  by  sea  and  criminal  hunting  by  land.  The  tale  begins  with  some  exciting 
salvage  while  off  the  Cornish  coast,  and  passes  on  to  the  allurements  of  detective 
work  in  England  and  Brittany.  In  Austin  Voogdt,  the  hero,  Mr.  Drake  has 
created  a  commanding  figure  in  romance. 

THE    PERPETUAL    CHOICE.      By  Constance  Cotterell, 

Author  of '  The  Virgin  and  the  Scales.' 

The  Perpetual  Choice  runs  between  poverty  and  wealth,  passion  and  prejudice, 
London  and  the  country,  and  is  the  story  of  a  high-spirited  girl.  She  has  to  dis- 
cover the  precariousness  of  housekeeping  on  enthusiasm  with  her  strange  friends, 
and  finds  that  poverty  is  partly  fun  and  partly  a  blight.  Three  men  love  her,  all 
differently,  and  when  she  falls  in  love  her  crisis  has  come. 

CHARLES  QUANTRILL.  By  Evelyn  Apted. 
A  story  of  quiet  charm  and  of  intense  human  interest.  The  interest  of  the 
book  does  not  depend  on  sensational  effects,  but  rather  in  the  endeavour  to  apply 
insight  and  imagination  to  the  faithful  description  of  events  and  problems  which 
might  confront  any  one  of  its  readers.  The  scene  shifts  at  times  from  England 
to  South  Africa,  Norway,  and  the  Riviera.  A  perfectly  natural  sequence  of  events 
leads  to  the  marriage  of  a  girl  of  strong  character  with  a  man  of  principles  less 
high  than  her  own.  The  writer  brings  the  story  to  a  dramatic  close  about  two 
years  after  the  marriage. 

LITTLE  HEARTS.  By  Marjorie  L.  Pickthall. 
A  story  of  the  Forest  and  the  Downs  in  the  troubled  times  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  telling  how  Mr.  Sampson,  a  gentleman  engaged  in  the  production  of  a 
Philosophy  of  Poverty,  rescues  and  shelters  one  Anthony  Oakshott,  who  is  thrown 
from  horseback  over  his  wall,  and  whom  he  takes  for  an  heroic  Jacobite,  much 
wanted  by  the  King's  men.  By  so  doing  he  changes  his  own  life  and  that  of  the 
girl  he  loves. 

METHUEN  &  CO.  LTD.,  36  Essex  Street,  LONDON,  W.C. 


A   SELECTION    OF    BOOKS 

PUBLISHED  BY  METHUEN 

AND     CO.    LTD.     LONDON 

36  ESSEX   STREET 

W.C. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

General  Literature       ...  2 

Ancient  Cities    ....  13 

Antiquary's  Books    ...  13 

Arden  Shakespeare  ...  14 

Classics  of  Art          ...  14 

'  Complete '  Series     ...  15 

Connoisseur's  Library      .        .  15 

Handbooks  of  English  Church 

History 16 

Handbooks  of  Theology  .        .  16 

'  Home  Life  '  Series  ...  16 
Illustrated  Pocket  Library  of 

Plain  and  Coloured  Books  .  16 

Leaders  of  Religion         .       .  17 

Library  of  Devotion         .        .  17 

Little  Books  on  Art         .       .  18 

Little  Galleries          ...  18 

Little  Guides     ....  18 

Little  Library            ,        ,  19 


PAGE 

Little  Quarto  Shakespeare    .  20 

Miniature  Library     ...  20 

New  Library  of  Medicine       .  ai 

New  Library  of  Music    .        .  21 

Oxford  Biographies  .       .       .  21 

Four  Plays 21 

States  of  Italy          ...  21 

Westminster  Commentaries  .  22 

'  Young '  Series  ....  22 

Shilling  Library        ...  22 

Books  for  Travellers        .       .  23 

Some  Books  on  Art.        .       .  23 

Some  Books  on  Italy       .        .  24 

Fiction 25 

Books  for  Boys  and  Girls       .  30 

Shilling  Novels  ....  30 

Sevenpenny  Novels  .  31 


A    SELECTION    OF 

MESSRS.     METHUEN'S 
PUBLICATIONS 


IN  this  Catalogue  the  order  is  according  to  authors.  An  asterisk  denotes 
that  the  book  is  in  the  press. 

Colonial  Editions  are  published  of  all  Messrs.  METHUEN'S  Novels  issued 
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General  Literature.  Colonial  Editions  are  only  for  circulation  in  the  British 
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Messrs.  METHUEN'S  books  are  kept  in  stock  by  all  good  booksellers.  If 
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This  Catalogue  contains  only  a  selection  of  the  more  important  books 
published  by  Messrs.  Methuen.  A  complete  and  illustrated  catalogue  of  their 
publications  may  be  obtained  on  application. 


Abraham  <G.  D.).  MOTOR  WAYS  IN 
LAKELAND.  Illustrated.  Second 
Edition.  Demy  &vo.  ^s.  6d.  net. 

Adcock  (A.  St.  John).  THE  BOOK- 
LOVER'S  LONDON.  Illustrated.  Second 
Edition.  Cr.  8vo.  6s.  net. 

Ady  (Cecilia  M.).  PIUS  II.:  THE 
HUMANIST  POPE.  Illustrated.  Demy  &vo. 
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Andrewes  (Lancelot).  PRECES  PRI- 
VATAE.  Translated  and  edited,  with 
Notes,  by  F.  E.  BRIGHTMAN.  Cr.  Bvo.  6s. 

Aristotle.  THE  ETHICS.  Edited,  with 
an  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  JOHN 
BURNET.  Demy  8»<?.  ioj.  id.  net. 

Atkinson  (0.  T.).  A  HISTORY  OF  GER- 
MANY, 1715-1815.  Demy  Bvo.  las.  6d.  net. 

Atkinson  (T.  D.).  ENGLISH  ARCHI- 
TECTURE.  Illustrated.  Third  Edition. 
Fcap.  &vo.  js.  6d.  net. 

GLOSSARY  OF  TERMS  USED  IN 
ENGLISH  ARCHITECTURE.  Illus- 
trated. Second  Edition.  Fcap.  &vo.  $s.  6d. 

ENGLISH  AND  WELSH  CATHE- 
DRALS. Illustrated.  Demy  Zvo.  los.  6d. 
net. 

Bain  (P.  W.).  A  DIGIT  OF  THE  MOON: 
A  HINDOO  LOVE  STORY.  Eleventh  Edition. 
Fca.  §vo,  *.  6d,  net, 


THE  DESCENT  OF  THE  SUN  :  A  CYCLE 

OF   BIRTH.      Sixth    Edition.      Fcap.    Bva. 

3-r.  6d.  net. 
A  HEIFER    OF    THE    DAWN.      Eighth 

Edition.    Fcap.  Bva.     vs.  6d.  net. 
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27 


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MASTER  ROCKAFELLAR'S  VOYAGE.     W.  Clark 
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GUARDED  FLAME,  THE.     W.  B.  Maxwell. 
HAI.O,  THE.     Baroness  von  Hutten. 
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FICTION 


Methucn's  Shilling  Novels  -continued. 

JOSEPH.     Frank  Danby. 

LADV  BETTY  ACROSS  TUG  WATER.      C.  N. 
and  A.  M.  Williamson. 

LIGHT  FREIGHTS.    W.  W.  Jacobs. 
LONG  ROAD,  THE.    John  Oxenham. 
MIGHTY  ATOM,  THE.     Marie  Corelli. 
MIRAGE.    E.  Temple  Thurston. 

MISSING  DELORA,  THE.    E.  Phillips  Oppen- 
heiin. 

ROUND  THE  RED  LAMP.   Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

SAID,  THE  FISHERMAN.      Marmaduke  Pick- 
thall. 


SEARCH  PARTY,  THE.     G.  A.  Birmingham. 
SECRET  WOMAN,  THE.     Eden  Phillpotts. 
SEVERINS,  THE.     Mrs.  Alfred  Sidgwick. 
SPANISH  GOLD.     G.  A.  Birmingham. 
SPLENDID  BROTHER.     W.  Pett  Ridge. 
TALES  OF  MEAN  STREETS.     Arthur  Morrison. 

TERESA    OF    WATLING    STREET.       Arnold 
Bennett. 

TYRANT,  THE.     Mrs.  Henry  de  la  Pasture. 
UNDER  THE  RED  ROBE.    Stanley  J.  Weyman. 
VIRGINIA  PERFECT.     Peggy  Webling. 

WOMAN    WITH    THE    FAN,    THE.      Robert 
Hichens. 


ANGEL.    B.  M.  Croker. 

BROOM  SQUIRE,  THE.    S.  Baring-Gould 
Bv  STROKE  OF  SWORD.    Andrew  Balfour. 

HOUSE    OF    WHISPERS,    THE.      William  Le 
Queux. 

HUMAN  BOY,  THE.    Eden  Phillpotts. 
I  CROWN  THEE  KING.     Max  Pemberton. 
LATE  IN  LIFE.     Alice  Perrin. 
LONE  PINE.    R.  B.  Townshend. 
MASTER  OF  MEN.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
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C.    J. 


PRINCESS  VIRGINIA,  THE.      C.  N.  &  A.  M. 
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PROFIT  AND  Loss.     John  Oxenham. 
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THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


JUL   21  193* 


EP  27  1944 


nr.T  m  1945 


UNIV.  OF  CALiF..  BERK. 


LD  21-100w-7,' 


324315 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


